

MARIE ST. FELIX j) 


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A LITTLE GAME 
:: :: WITH DESTINY 


BY 


MARIE ST. FELIX 

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“ My friend ‘he Artiet. hastiJv wrought 
On the canvas a beautiful great vr.ite dove; 
A crimson gash across its throat, 

And moodily underneath it, ‘ Love.’ ” 





NEW YORK 

THE MERRIAM COMPANY 
67 Fifth Avenue 



Copyrighted, 1892, 

BY 

MARIE ST. FELIX. 


Copyright, 1894. 

THE MERRIAM COMPANY. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 


ft 

* 





“ TO RELIEVE YOU OF THE EMBARRASSMENT OF A LIMITED 


SELECTION OF MORAL i ITERATORS FOR PRESENTATION TO 
YOUR YOUNG FRIENDS IN COMING YEARS. I MIGHT OFFER TO 
WRITE SOME BOOKS MYSELF, WERE IT NOT FOR THE REMARK 
AN IRISHMAN ONCE MADE TO ME, — THAT HE VERILY BELIEVED 
IF I EVER DID WRITE A BOOK, IT WOULD BE SO IMPROPER MY 
FRIENDS WOULD REFUSE TO LET ME READ IT.” 


AN AUTHOR'S LOVE. LETTER COIX. 



PART I 











A LITTLE GAME WITH 
DESTINY. 


Block Island, E. L, July 3, *79. 

Ah, the dear world.; it is so beautiful ! I am so glad to 
be in it, to be a part of it ! I am so happy ! It has been 
a charming day ; every one has tried to give me pleasure. 
First, mamma came to my room with a little moonstone 
pin encircled with pearls, and then papa gave me you, my 
dainty little journal, with your savory Eussia bindings and 
tiny gold lock and key ; and I am to write upon your fresh, 
unsullied pages all that happens in my life day by day. I 
wonder if much will happen ! I wonder if there will be 
grand events, or only every-day odds and ends to relate ! 
A little shiver creeps over me as I try to anticipate the 
future. Perhaps I will not always be happy ! How odd 
it would be to he sad ! I cannot figure it to myself. I, 
gloomy and morose ! Nevertheless, I hope the little heart- 
sinking was not an omen of sorrow. 

I feel myself very old — sixteen to-day. I am to wear my 
new frock with the little train to-night (the very first inch 
of a train I ever possessed) ; it is pale blue, with sprays of 
embroidered daisies, and I have gathered a huge hunch of 
Marguerites in the fields to wear at my belt. We are to 
dance the Mother Goose quadrilles, and I am to dance with 
Tim Blake. 


10 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


Midnight. 

I have had such a good time ! To be sure, there is but 
little tulle left on my gown, except in shreds ; I am sneez- 
ing violently for having gone down to the pier with Mr. 
Goddard without any wrap, just after a waltz, and I have 
awfully offended Tommy Miller by not going with him ; 
but I have, notwithstanding these blemishes , had a very 
fine time. Mr. Goddard is so distinguished ! He is tall, 
and has iron gray hair and beard, a nose like Napoleon’s, 
and his wife treats him brutally. She does not love him, 
and never speaks to him if she can help it. She has gone 
to the mountains now, and left him to come here all alone. 
He says I am such a sweet comfort to him, and that he 
always feels himself a better man after he has talked with 
me a little while. Think of that, Madame Journal ! I, 
Penelope Gray, a stupid little girl sixteen years old, am a 
true comfort to a man forty-two, who, is one of the most 
famous lawyers in America ! He asked me to let him give 
me a little gift for my birthday. I said I did not think 
mamma would permit me to accept it. He replied he felt 
confident she could not object, and put in my hands a 
case, in which I found a prayer-book and hymnal 
in dark blue Kussia with silver clasps and my name in silver 
letters. I was so pleased. They are the prettiest I have 
ever had. How good of him to think of it, when he must 
be so busy with important matters ! How can his wife 
treat him so shamefully? 

Everything in the house is quiet ana still. It must be 
very late. The yachts in the harbor look spectral in the 
white moonlight. The waves roll lazily up the beach 
with their gentle little swish, swash. I seem alone with 
it all ! 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


11 


July 5. 

I wonder what will he your ultimate destiny, Madame 
Journal; if my grandchildren will peruse your yellowed 
pages, or if the flames will convey you to ashes, and then 
the four winds of heaven scatter broadcast the poor re- 
mains ! Now, if I were to become the wife, or the mother, 
of some future excellent President of these United States, 
you would perhaps repose on a velvet cushion in a glass- 
case at the Corcoran Art Gallery or the Boston Art 
Museum. At all events, I think I should write my biog- 
raphy! Future historians may require it for data . I 
am only Penelope Gray now — but this is America ! 

I was born in Boston in a little house on Charles 
street, which now is a shop, July 3d, 1863. Mamma is 
the daughter of a Methodist clergyman, a Virginian, who 
came north when the war broke out and settled in New 
England. Papa is the son of a broker, who is a dear old 
man with a snow-white heard. But he did not like it at all 
when my father married my mother, who is very beautiful 
and clever, but with a most truly nasty temper. My father 
is tall and handsome and always very calm and judicious. 
He is treasurer of several companies, and adores my mother. 

When I was two years old my father desired me to take 
some medicine. I refused. He put it in my mouth and I 
spit it out. He whipped me — but I still knocked over the 
spoon. At last, ashamed to whip me longer — for fear I 
would be ill — he gave up the contest. I did not take the 
medicine, and it is said I have had my own way ever since. 

It was decided when I was nine years old that I was a 
very rebellious, ill-behaved young person, and that it might 
be well to leave me to my grandparents, the Virginians, for 
a short time, who had given my mother much advice upon 
my government. I had then two little sisters who would 
be at home — Mildred and Marjorie — so my parents would 
not very keenly miss me. I remember so well th« day I 


12 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


was taken into the country to my grandmother’s, with my 
little trunk of gingham pinafores, some school-books, and 
my dolly “ Emmeline ” and her wardrobe. It was a cold, 
bleak day in November. My grandmother sat one side 
of the stove and my grandfather the other, one reading the 
Zion’s Herald , the other the Bible. My grandmother 
brought forward a little rocking-chair and took olf my 
wraps. Then she called the maid, who soon after brought 
me two gingef-snaps on a small blue plate. My father had 
to return at once, so I was soon left alone with my grand- 
parents. My grandfather handed me a little black book 
from the book-case, a story called “ Poor Matt,” by Jean 
Ingelow. They asked me a few questions about my jour- 
ney, then resumed their reading. Everything seemed to 
me very quiet and oppressive, even the old gray cat was 
asleep in a cushioned arm-chair. I finally said I would like 
to go to my room. I went upstairs and locked the door 
and then threw myself on the little bed and had a long, 
long cry. It must have been a very effectual weeping, for 
I did not cry again until the day I left the house, six 
months later. 

A widowed aunt soon after came to live with us, and 
heard my lessons each day. I read the History of Method- 
ism by Stevens, Sargent’s Temperance Tales, and the books 
of the Sunday-school Library. One day my aunt, who had 
been too much wrapped in her grief to give me very serious 
attention, chanced to notice me pouring over a frightful 
temperance story. “Horrors!” she exclaimed, “is the 
library so badly off that you have to take such nightmare 
tales as these for amusement ? Go upstairs to my room, 
dear, and you will find f Pink and White Tyranny 9 on the 
book-shelf. I reckon that will be pleasanter reading, even 
if not quite suited to your years!” I was soon absorbed in 
Lillie's airy graces and the woes of the prim John. When 
my aunt next went to town she subscribed for the Youth’s 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


13 


Companion and brought home Maria Edgeworth's 
Tales. 

When the spring came I was permitted to play with a 
little hoy next door, who could concoct, I remember, a very 
fine mud-cake. We would bake them in the sun, and la- 
bored seriously to excel in assortment of shapes. 

But my day was not all passed in mud-cake baking. 
Eirst came my lessons, then an hour of play, then an hour 
of work on my sampler, and so on. 

And finally came the day when I went home. I was 
making a little bag. Now I disliked very much putting 
the draw-string in. I was somehow quite clumsy at it. I 
had asked grandmother if I might go out when I had fin- 
ished the bag, and she had consented. When the bag was 
done all tut the draiv-string I ran out to play. It was 
about half an hour later, as I completed the scalloped edges 
of the first mud-pfe, that I saw my grandmother, with a 
yery unamiable expression, coming toward me. She reached 
her hand to me. I did not argue or hesitate, — oh no! — I 
arose and gave mine at once ! She led me over the field 
homeward. 

“ Penelope," she said, (i I am going to whip you." 

“ Yes, grandma." 

cc I shall whip you with a little huckleberry bush, for I 
have no whalebones in the house. You were told not to go 
out until the bag was finished." We walked on hand in 
hand until we reached the house, when she led me to her 
bedroom, and then I began to cry. 

“ Lie down, Penelope." I lay down — on my hack. 

“ Turn on to your face, Penelope." With a shudder I 
obeyed. The little huckleberry bush came tingling down 
upon my shrinking skin. 

“ Oh, grandma, I will never do it again," I sobbed. 

“ I don't intend you shall," came in even tones with the 
well-regulated strokes. 


14 


A little Game With destihy. 


“ Oh, grandma, I will be good/'’ I pleaded. 

“ Yes, my dear,” — stroke, stroke — “I hope you will.” 

That evening a carriage drove up to a house in Charles 
street, from which stepped a little girl in a mud-be- 
spattered pinafore and tear-stained face, who rushed 
into the house, past the startled maid at the door, calling 
out, 

“ Fve come home, papa, — and I'm never going back ! She 
whipped me !” 

July 6. 

I was interrupted by a note from Mr. Goddard, asking 
me to join a sailing party, so I deserted you, ma confi- 
dante, yesterday. There was a delicious breeze, and I 
could have kept right on to Newport, but that the others 
cared more to come back. 

Let me see — where was I in my narrative ? Oh yes, 
it was after grandma whipped me and I ran away. I put 
on my little sun-bonnet and climbed out of the low window 
jf her bedroom, where she had left me to repent, and 
trudged away to the station. I knew better than to at- 
tempt to buy a ticket of the station-master, who knew me, 
and would instantly corral me, but played about until the 
train came in and then hastened into the last car. When the 
conductor came I pulled out my little red purse and gravely 
offered him a ten-cent piece and a penny. He laughed. 
“ Haven't you any ticket ?” 

“ No, sir ; I came in a hurry.” 

“ I should say so,” he said, looking at me more gravely. 
“ Where are you going?” 

“To Boston; and — and — perhaps my father will meet 
me.” I believe I hoped this was not an utter falsehood, 
for I had always prided myself on being a very truthful 
little girl, and felt quite terrified as I heard myself stum- 
blingly make this false assertion, but I hoped the perhaps 
would somehow mitigate the offense. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


15 


“Well,” said he, “this isn’t enough money to pay your 
fare. Your father can give it to me in Boston.” 

I sat very still in my little corner, watching the flitting 
figures in the deepening dusk, and beginning to get very 
frightened as the darkness increased. What if the con- 
ductor should put me in jail when we reached the city and 
my father did not come and my fare was not paid ? And 
how was I to get home anyway when I did not know the 
way? The train pulled into the long, smoky station-house 
at last, with its dim, smoking lamps, and mob of screech- 
ing cabmen, porters and expressmen. I watched the 
people leave the car, with a sense of despair. I wished 
with all my quavering heart I was tucked up in my little 
bed at grandmother’s. Slowly I crept down from my seat 
and passed out with them, then stood forlornly on the 
platform. 

“Ah, here is the little girl,” said a cheery voice, and the 
big, Burly conductor came and took my hand. “ No papa 
to meet you? Well, now what’s to be done ? Do you 
know your street and number?” 

I told him where my home was, eagerly, and then, my 
conscience gripping me, I added, vehemently, “ And papa 
wasn’t to meet me, I told you a story. Grandma whipped 
me and I ran away. I’m sorry I haven’t enough money — 
won’t you please take this ?” and I handed him the little 
red purse. He put it back into my hands. 

“ That’s all right,” he said; “that’s all right. You’re a 
plucky one! Hi, there, Charlie,” to a vanishing hackman, 
“I want you to take this little girl to Charles street.” 
And that is how I reached home safely, just as my father 
and mother were going out to a reception and my little 
sisters were being tucked into bed for the night. 

I next remember a very severe whipping my mother gave 
me. Poor mamma has such a beastly temper, and, when 
angry, quite loses control of herself. I was twelve years 


16 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


old at the time I speak of; and my father's mother was 
visiting ns, my grandfather having moved to New York 
at thajt time to be near an invalid sister (who soon died, 
and then they returned to Boston). My grandmother was 
a dear little old lady, very gentle in her manner, and a 
great deal like my father in temperament. She was 
greatly exercised upon coming into the nursery one morn- 
ing to see my mother cease whipping me and knock me 
furiously against the wall several times, holding me by the 
shoulders. 

I did not utter a sound; and when she released me, 
walked calmly out of the room to my chamber and sat 
down with my algebra. Grandma followed me, curious at 
my behavior. 

“Well; Penelope,” she said, “you stood that very 
well.” 

"1—37 — ” I muttered, then looked up. Grandma,” I 
said, in a very still little voice, “ I am praying God to kill 
her!” 

That evening at dinner my father remarked, “Well, 
Penelope, how would you like to go adrift again? Your 
grandmother wants to take you home with her for several 
weeks; and there are no huckleberry bushes growing in 
Gotham.” I was too excited to eat anything more, and 
got up at daylight the next morning to pack Emmeline's 
wardrobe, who was still my cherished companion. 

July 7. 

The next three months I passed in a big red brick house 
in Washington Square, New York. My visit to my 
grandmother Gray was quite a contrast to the one at my 
grandmother Eeatherstonehaugh's. I had a number of 
little playmates, a library full of books, and two young 
relatives took me often to the Park for a ride in a goat- 
cart, and cream at a little restaurant under the bridge. I 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


17 


learned to play whist, and I read Jane Eyre — finishing it, 
I remember, at four o'clock in the morning — and I nearly 
fell asleep at the breakfast- table a few hours later, to the 
great alarm of my grandmother, who thought me surely 
ill. Each morning I accompanied my grandfather to a 
neighboring candy-shop where he daily invested four cents 
in red gum-drops for me — four cents just purchasing an 
ounce, and considered an uninjurious quantity. And 
shortly after my arrival I fell in love ! My Adonis was a 
fair-haired, very red-cheeked boy, and was carrier for the 
florist. We commenced a correspondence — our post-office 
being a box concealed in a ledge by the back gate — and he 
told me in vivid red ink upon blue ruled stationery that 
he “ luved me so mutch " he would “ dye for me," and he 
made a little “ i 99 when referring to himself, which surely 
proves his deep humility. I placed these precious billets- 
doux in the envelopes which brought to me my mother's 
letters, destroying hers, and tying packets of these together 
with pale blue ribbon, as I had read in Godey’s Lady’s 
Booh a loving maiden should do. But, alas! my grand- 
mother, when packing my little trunk previous to my 
home-coming again, became suspicious of these bedecked 
missives, and peering into one and finding her suspicions 
most emphatically correct, took them to her sister, and 
together they had a very merry time over my love notes, 
and I have never yet heard the last of them. 

And now I am sixteen — and here we all are at Block 
Island for the summer. Mamma, Mildred, little Marjorie 
and I, and Papa comes for Sundays. 

It is a large airy hotels filled with people from all over 
the nation. Editors, judges, famous actresses, men of 
note in many professions are here, charming society 
women and pretty girls — but oh, so very few young men! 
The thermometer is never above seventy-six degrees, and a 
sea breeze is always blowing, since, being an island, a land 


18 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


breeze is always overswept by the wind from the sea. Ah, 
it is delicious — this Block Island air ! It is like being on a 
ship far out in the ocean, only one escapes the rocking and 
plunging of a vessel. 

I see little of Mamma. In the morning I go with little 
Marjorie and Celeste to the bathing beach; in the after- 
noon Mamma drives, usually without me, and after chap- 
eroning me for a while in the parlor at night she leaves for 
the whist table, which receives her rapt attention till mid- 
night. I realized last night how lucky it is she does not 
stop at my room as she passes on her way to bed — fancying 
me soundly sleeping — for last night I was out in a little 
yacht with Mr. Goddard and some others till many 
minutes after twelve. 

July 10. 

I admire Mr. Goddard more each day. He is so con- 
siderate, so unselfish, so generous! He looks after my 
being wrapped up if chilly, even to taking off his own 
overcoat; he sends to Newport for such exquisite roses for 
me; and is in every way so gallant and attentive. I almost 
wish he were not married. What a loathsome woman she 
must be! He sighs whenever I speak of her! 

July 11. 

We had a very jolly time in the parlor last evening, and a 
number of us formed ourselves into an association — The 
Fire Brigade. An English actress. Miss Hoyle, Mrs. 
Ames, a famous Chicago beauty, and a New York fellow, 
Mr. Blake, who has just come into a fortune, are the 
officers and promoters of the club. We are to wear broad- 
brimmed hats trimmed with flaming red cambric, and in 
many ways appear as scarlet as possible. Mr. Blake and 
Mrs. Ames are to give us a champagne supper some night 
this week. Papa would never allow me but one glass of 
champagne a year, and that at Christmas dinner I Perhaps 
I may take two at this feast — just perhaps ! 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHT. 


19 


July 12. 

While writing yesterday a note came from Mr. Goddard 
asking me to walk on Pebbly Beach. We found a sheltered 
little nook and ensconced ourselves. He read me “ Guini- 
vere.” Oh, it is so sad! When he had finished the tears 
were in my eyes — and he stooped and kissed me. I suppose 
he felt sad and lonesome. Still, I must not let him kiss me 
again; it is not at all right. I did not see him after supper. 
W e had a meeting of the Fire Brigade, and I went to my 
room early and sat a long time in the moonlight, watching 
the ships at sea. 

July 15. 

I am so tired ! The much anticipated champagne supper 
is over. I was going to write about it, but I guess Fm too 
sleepy. The book seems so far away, and my head feels 
like something tiresome to hold up ! Bonne nuit, madame. 

July 16. 

How devoted I have been to you, Madame Journal! 
Entries nearly every day. I shall soon have never a blank 
page left if I continue at this garrulous rate. The supper 
was a great success. I had a glorious time. I think some 
of them drank too much wine. I took only a few glasses, 
but it made me so sleepy! I scarcely recollect getting to 
bed, and I slept till very late in the morning. 

Sunday, July 20. 

Pm afraid Fve been imprudent. (I no longer desire 
this diary to go down to my descendants! I foresee there 
may be pages I would blush to have read— and this will be 
one!) It was such a temptation! And somewhere I have 
read, “ What is the use of temptation if you don't yield to 
it?" It happened last night. We had been sitting down 
on the rocks, Mr. Goddard and I, and everything was so 
beautiful in the moonlight — the shadows on the rocks, the 


20 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


slow movement of the anchored yachts, the still, soft air 
with the smell of the sea — it seemed to intoxicate me! We 
were sitting very near together. I liked the touch of his 
arm against mine; as he moved nearer to me it made my 
heart beat faster, and then he took my face in his hand 
very gently and looked into my eyes with his own great 
brown ones, and almost whispered to me, “ Little one, I love 
you l” Ah, I can hear it, feel it, yet ! I did not resist. He 
kissed me again and again. Then we walked slowly home 
— and to-day I am wretched ! 

I wonder will he get divorced and ask me to marry him? 
I love him, I am sure I do, and I would be miserable away 
from him, and he is so unhappy with his wife. Yes, I 
think he will tell me to-day that he will get a divorce ; and 
of course we must not see each other often until after that 
is over. I wonder if Mamma would be angry. It is against 
the church to marry a divorced man, and there is the 
special dispensation to get and all that! 

* * * * * * * 

I do not know if I most want to see him, or most dread to 
see him ! At any rate, here I sit in my room and at every 
footstep hope that it is a message from him, yet do not 
venture onto the piazza, where he is very probably sitting 
at the shady corner with a cigar and the Providence 
Journal , and perhaps — wishing for me! 

August 8, *79. 

Did you think I had forgotten you, chere madame? 
There has been nothing to write but thoughts, and it is 
said one should never commit those to paper. 

Each day is much the same. The morning bath, the 
after-dinner siesta, the occasional drive with Mamma, per- 
haps later a walk with Mr. Goddard to our little nook on 
Pebbly Beach, where he reads to me exquisite poems and 
beautiful romances; but always our little hour together in 
the evening if we cannot find time for each other in the 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


21 


afternoon. Oh, I am so happy! What a delightful place 
Block Island is ! I would like to stay here forever ! 

Saturday, August 9, *79. 

Such a storm as it is to-day! No one stirs from the 
house. The surf is grand, and comes roaring in, mammoth 
breakers thundering up the beach in quick succession ! 

Mamma is about with a smelling-bottle and brandy flask, 
vowing that we shall be swept away and lamenting that no 
steamer can come over to-day with the mails. 

I have been learning to play poker, with Mr. Goddard 
for tutor and chocolate drops for antes . It is usually 
played with pennies, but we use chocolates, for, of course, I 
would not play for money. 

August 11. 

Last night Mr. Goddard asked me to come to his room, 
he had a surprise there for me. I know it's very improper 
to go to a man 's room, but we are such old friends now, 
and then sometimes one has a desire to do just what one 
should not — don't you know, Madame Confidante ? And I 
went! 

Awaiting my coming was a pitcher of something called 
champagne cock-tail, a most delicious stuff. I could drink 
it forever! We did not have a light — it makes the room 
so warm — but sat by the window, looking out upon the 
water, sipping the wine now and then. It was very beauti- 
ful out at sea, the light-house afar casting a golden reflec- 
tion upon the dark waters; the swaying lanterns on the 
nearer yachts, and the twinkling lights in the great dark 
sky above. 

He told me how he had tried to resist loving me, but- 
each day I grew dearer to him; that his life had been 0 
very unhappy one; some day he would tell me all about it; 
that if I would care for him a little it would bring such 
joy into his life! 


22 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


But he said not a word about a divorce, and surely he 
does not want me to love him when it will he such a sin 
and such misery to us both, to love one another in secret 
and be always kept apart by such a barrier. 

August 18. 

It is one week, one week of seven long days — and nights 
— since I have talked with you, madame. It seems to me 
many years! Years of struggle — desperate, heart-tearing 
struggle ! 

I opened my birthday prayer-book this morning and 
turned to the Psalter. It was the eighty-eighth psalm, and 
the first six verses I read over and over again. I put a 
little mark at the second and third verses, they seemed so 
apt and appropriate! 

Oh, God! I know not which pathway to turn to! All 
are filled with briers and seem impassable as the way con- 
tinues. The waves heating on the rocks below whisper a 
grim solution. Would I dare? Oooo! how cold it would 
he to-night, and it is so black and shadowy toward the 
shore! But it is only a little way — it would all be over 
quickly — soon I would he miles away upon the ocean — a 
hit of driftwood on the crest of a wave, a white, staring, 
helpless thing. Ah no, no ! I cannot do that ! Why will 
it haunt me? Why cannot I forget the horrible, merciless 
sea? And yet — to reach an end of it all — of everything ! 
to get away from thought — thought that maddens me, 
crazes me! I could make a trip-hammer of my head and 
beat it against the wall till all sense were dead forever ! 

I cannot bear it ! I cannot bear it! That I, Penelope 
Gray , should he an outcast from society, not fit to touch 
the hem of my mother’s garment, not fit to touch the pure 
little faces of Mildred and Marjorie! 

I hate him ! 

And yet, I do not hate him! 

We had both had too much champagne. He has told 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


23 


me he never meant it to happen — that the wine over- 
powered him — he did not know what he did ! 

Surely he could not have lenown! 

Papa, how will I ever look in youi; face again? Yonr 
little Penelope is as black as pitch! Not soot, daddy, dear 
— that brushes off — hut pitch, which sticks to one and will 
not be lightly ridden of. 

August 19. 

For a week I have stayed in my room. I have said I was 
ill — surely it is true ! Ill in every fibre of my being. 

Mildred came to me last night and climbed into my lap 
to be kissed, and I told her I hated kisses and never wanted 
her to kiss me again. 

She went away so grieved. But surely I never must kiss 
her all my life now. I must teach myself the difference 
between us — the great bank of guilt that keeps my soul 
(where I pray God hers may never be) pinioned beneath an 
overpowering weight. 

Once he has written me. 

“ Little One: 

“ I am suffering the tortures of the eternally lost. I was 
overpowered with wine. I swear I knew not what I did. 
I only know I worship you. I want to see you. Surely 
you will see me one moment, dear. God knows I am 
wretched until you come to me.” 

I cannot go. 

I can never see him again. And if I go downstairs and 
avoid him every one will notice it, we have been so much 
together. 

And how could I laugh and talk lightly with him 
now? 

No, I will stay in my room until we go or he goes. 

What will I do with all my life now? Gan I ever laugh 
and be gay again and hide the anguish in my soul ? 

The waves still beat upon the crags below. They would 


24 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


cover me deep! Why hesitate? Ah, me! It is so cold 
and dark — so cold! 

Let me think! 

August 20. 

“ Death we can face; but knowing, as some of us do, 
what is human life, which of us is it that, without shudder- 
ing (if consciously we were summoned), could face the hour 
of birth?” De Quincey wrote that. Poor fellow! Well, 

I fancy there would be few. 

Surely I am much changed. A week or so ago I would 
have said, “ All of us,” now I say few ; and yet, what do I 
know of other people’s lives ? Because / am evil why should 
I judge half the world to be likewise ? 

Somehow I no longer have feeling. I feel nothing mat- 
ters. I cannot rouse myself. I am in a lethargy. I can- 
not sleep. I do not care to eat. When I try to read, my 
own thoughts predominate. 

I am very wretched! 

August 21. 

It is over. I have seen him. I had decided to go down 
to Pebbly Beach yesterday afternoon and see if the air 
would not help me, the exercise awaken me. I felt so 
dizzy and ill and nerveless. I took “ Guinevere ” and my 
waterproof and found myself a little nook sheltered from 
the sun and spread my cloak for a seat on a large smooth 
rock and began to read the poem he had read me. 

And all at once I felt he had come. 

I did not dare look up at once. I looked at his shadow 
as it stretched down the sand and wondered if I could ever 
find my voice to speak; and then at last he spoke: 

“ Penelope.” 

It sounded so strange! I did not move or stir or raise 
my eyes. The shadow of a sea-gull flitted across the figure 
I watched. The shadow of the figure came nearer to me; 
a rock cut off the head. A little shudder came over me. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


25 


It seemed an omen; I felt a longing to save him from this 
guillotining. I put my book by and went to where he 
stood and looked up into his eyes ; he stretched out his 
arms to me, looking so sorry and wretched that I could 
only throw my arms about his neck and hurst out crying. 

W e had a long talk a little later. He told me it is not 
brave to regret; that nothing — neither human power nor 
divine — can undo the past; that he will love me always and 
do anything he can all his life long to make me happier; 
that we can find much happiness in our love for each other; 
that I am dearer than anything in the world to him; that 
I will he always his first consideration. 

We came back to the hotel together. I am going to 
his room for a few moments* talk after the dancing to- 
night. 

Falcohsheight, Jamaica Plaih, 
October 10. 

How I have neglected you, cherie ! Each day since I 
came home I have thought to have a little talk with you, 
but the recollection of those days — so graven on my 

gmory — when each day I came gladly to you with my 
life, and then when in horror I put you far in the bottom 
of my trunk and kept away from you — has still kept me 
from turning the little golden lock which is the open sesame 
to those few pages. 

I suppose it was only a little while ago, but it seems 
as though it were many years past. I suppose I am 
only sixteen years old, but I feel old and bent and dis- 
pirited. 

Surely I am wrong to feel so. Van Buren is so kind to 
me and so dearly loves me, and never treats me as he might 
— as a woman “beyond the pale** ; no, if I were his wife 
he could not treat me with more respect, more considera- 
tion; and he assures me he will marry me if ever he can; 
but now, while his children are young, he hesitates to 


26 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


bring the disgrace of divorce upon them. He is so noble, 
so great, so self-sacrificing! He loathes his wife, yet he 
lives with her for the sake of his little children ! Hot one 
man in a hundred would care for a woman who was to him 
what I am to Van Buren Goddard as he cares for me! He 
never for one instant lets me feel that I am not as 
other women are; that I am a low, lost person. And 
yet I cannot be happy! I feel myself in the world, yet 
not of it. 

At school I keep by myself all I can, I feel so despicable, 
so odious, when some girl puts her arm about my waist 
and caresses me. I long to cry out “ I am not what you 
think! If you knew, you would not touch me!” Only 
God in the heavens knows all that I suffer ! I would fly 
to the ends of the earth, only then all would be dis- 
covered, then poor Papa must suffer. Ho, i( the thorns 
I reap are of the tree I planted.” With dignity I must 
bear the inevitable. It is right I should suffer, and I 
would be a poor coward to sneak out the area door. 

Sunday, October 12. 

Mildred has commenced this year to go in town with me 
to school. We go in each morning in the cars and some- 
times Peter drives in for us, and sometimes we come out by 
the cars; but on Wednesday I take my lesson in singing, 
and Peter comes for Mildred, Papa not liking to have her 
go out by train alone. Then, when I have finished my 
lesson, I meet Van Buren, who comes down every Wednes- 
day afternoon to see me. We usually meet at u, little 
French restaurant in Van Rensselaer Place— Mieusset's — 
where we have a charming little lunch and a bottle of 
Pommery, and then perhaps go to drive. So long as I am 
home at six for dinner, little inquiry is made of my where- 
abouts during the afternoon. 

Then on Saturday I go in for my riding lesson, and 


A LITTLE GAME WITH EESTIHY. 


27 


Van comes down and we have a little luncheon again. 
Yesterday, however, he met me at the Public Gardens 
as I was crossing to go to MieussePs. He seemed to me 
even unusually gay, and he is always in delightful humor. 

“We lunch in a new place to-day, little one,” was his 
salute. “I have a cab. waiting at Arlington street.” We 
drove a little distance out on Columbus avenue and stopped 
at an apartment hotel. I followed him wonderingly into 
the house. He went up two flights of stairs, drew a latch- 
key from his pocket and threw open a door at the left. 
I found myself in a small room hung with rich draperies, 
the floor covered with rugs. A huge oak sideboard, 
and a divan were the principal articles of furniture; a 
little table covered with smoking paraphernalia stood by 
the divan. 

“Our smoking-room and wine-cellar, carina ,” Van 
gayly exclaimed. He threw up the top of the sideboard, 
which proved to contain an ice-chest where some bottles of 
wine were laid to cool. In amazement I penetrated to the 
next room, the truth dawning upon me. A pretty little 
parlor, with an upright Knabe in one corner, a green 
canary swinging from her perch in a cage by the window, 
a huge bouquet of jacqueminot roses in a vase on the 
centre-table — these dashed conspicuously into my vision; 
and beyond, through the drawn portiere, I could see a 
smaller room where a brass bedstead, shaded by a pale 
blue canopy, rested upon a Wilton rug of exquisite soft 
blue texture. 

“ Van, whose is it?” I demanded. 

“Yours, my darling,” he replied, “and mine — if you 
will let me share it with you. Our little home, Penny.” 

I threw my arms about his neck and kissed him grate- 
fully. It was such fun to have a house ! I explored at once 
every nook and cranny. The dining-room cupboard was 
filled with pretty dishes and cut glass from the famous 


28 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


Corning warehouses; the kitchen had the cunningest little 
stove, and that was about all there was room for, it was 
such a tiny kitchen; and on the dining-room table awaited 
us some cold sweetbreads, a celery salad, French rolls and 
butter, and a dish of Hamburg grapes. A Cloisonne vase 
at the corner held another bunch of beautiful jacqueminots. 
The dainty plates were cream and gold — the ground cream 
with a spray of golden forget-me-nots reaching from one edge 
to the centre on each; the wineglasses so thin they hardly 
were a substance, and on each the letter G in dainty tracery. 

Van went to the smoking-room and returned with a 
bottle of Pommery, then to the cupboard of the dining- 
room, where he unearthed some Eomanee, bearing both 
bottles in glee to the table. 

“ You see. Penny, we must celebrate to-day, and you’re 
not to get off on any meagre pint of wine! You drank more 
than a pint on the eleventh of August! Forgive me. 
Penny, don’t look so glum; you don’t regret it now, do 
you, darling ? When we’re so happy together, all in all to 
each other ? How, little one — Here’s to Crime!” 

I tried to look contented and glad, but it rather spoiled 
it all — that reference to the eleventh of August ; it is a date 
I want to ignore. I drank my glass of wine, however, and 
then another, and I soon found myself forgetting August 
and thoroughly enjoying October. I suppose I did drink 
more than the pint, as suggested, or I would have known 
I must be home for dinner. When I started for Falcons- 
height it was on the eight o’clock train. I had the cab- 
man who drove me up leave me at the outer gate, and I 
had crept very silently through the big trees of the drive- 
way around to Mildred’s window and had begun to pelt 
the panes with little pebbles, when I heard a voice and 
there stood Peter! 

“ Oh, Peter,” I begged, “ do let me in at the side door. 
I didn’t get home for dinner.” 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


29 


I went to my room and crawled into bed, with my head 
feeling like a pumpkin and the room seeming enveloped in 
haze. I was terrified for fear Mamma would come every 
moment, but my fear soon gave way to a sound sleep. And 
I need’nt have worried at all ! Mamma and Papa had 
dined at Grandma’s, and never heard I had been absent. 

October 20. 

I begin to find myself happier. I get a certain amount 
of comfort from doing my duty and keeping as aloof from 
others as is possible ; and it is a happiness to feel I am 
such a comfort to Van in his hard life. And then the se- 
cret of having a little abode all one’s own, which no one 
but we two know the least bit about, is delightful ! 

We have our Wednesday and Saturday luncheons there 
now. Van has it sent in from the hotel near, and the jan- 
itor’s wife washes the dishes and takes care of the rooms. 
I am Mrs. Gammell, and my husband is a drummer, and 
away a good deal, and so I stay much of the time at my 
mother’s ! This is the little tale I told to Berthe, the jan- 
itor’s wife, to explain our frequent absence. I have it all 
planned to go in vacation and visit Helen Palmer in Lowell, 
to stay two days instead of a week, and spend the rest of 
the time in our home on the avenue — and Van will come 
down every afternoon. 

October 22. 

We have named the new home t€ Rosebower.” It is the 
dearest little place in the world ! I go over now often, 
after school — when I have put Mildred into Peter’s care — 
don my little rose-colored silk wrapper, lie down on the 
divan with an Egyptian cigarette and a glass of sherry on 
the stand beside me, and read some of the stories Van has 
placed on the book shelf in the smoking-room. I have 
been reading Mallock’s “Romance of the Nineteenth 
Century ” to-day. 


30 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIMY. 


Thanksgiving Day. 

I do not seem to find much time to devote to yon, 
Madame Journal, of late. With my studies, my practice, 
Rosebower, and the daily letter Van insists upon, I am a 
somewhat busy young woman. Van writes me dear little 
letters every day, sending them to Rosebower. They are 
always just ore page long; they always commence “My 
Darling;” they are always signed “Your Own Van.” 

To-day we have all dined at Grandma's in town. Uncle 
Phil declared I had grown pale, and I had to undergo a 
good deal of teasing about my hermitage habits. A Mr. 
and Mrs. John Jerome were at dinner. Mr. Jerome has 
been in Europe the last ten years and is just home, and but 
recently married. I think he took a dislike to me, and I 
am sorry, for he is very handsome and has such beautiful 
eyes! Several times I found him looking at me with 
a very queer expression, and he merely bowed to me 
while he shook hands with the others in saying good- 
night. 

His wife is a pretty little woman, a relative in some way 
of Grandpa's brother, and has been at school in Germany 
for several years. She seemed somewhat absent-minded 
and called her husband Dearie . 

December 1. 

I have brought you here to dwell, Madame Journal, for 
if I should suddenly die I would scarcely be doing a very 
decent act to leave you in the posession of my kin! Poor 
Van Buren would have to go and dwell in Kamschatka, 
and even then he might find life troubled, for I would not 
be here to explain all the circumstances to Papa, and he 
would never listen to Van — but just leave him prepared 
for pall-bearers and a grassy mound ! 

I am waiting for Van now. We are to have a little sup- 
per at five o'clock. I think I will go back to my book — 
“In Paradise,'' by Paul Heyse. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH LESTIJSTY. 


31 


January 5, 1880. 

Christmas and New Year and holidays are gone, and the 
world is again in every-day garb, and one has a bit of 
breathing space. 

New Year’s day Van gave a dinner at the Parker House, 
inviting General Poynter and his friend Mr. Abbott, two 
pretty girls who have recently gone on the stage (and are 
old friends of General Poynter, Yan tells me), and myself. 
It was great fun! We had a little dining-room to our- 
selves, and the table was laden with beautiful flowers. 
Dinner was served at two, and at six we separated. I had 
always supposed actresses off the stage wore very loud 
clothes and jewelry, any amount of rouge and powder, and 
were given to speaking only in slang in boisterous tones, 
and were altogether a very ill-bred lot. And I have been 
ridiculously mistaken! Bijou Thorne is about five feet 
tall, with short, curly chestnut hair, and a gentle, confiding 
little way which is very attractive. She was dressed in a pale 
gray silk, with thread lace at throat and wrists, and a 
pearl pin as the sole adornment. She is a quaint, 1 old- 
fashioned little creature, and I stared at her again and 
again, wondering how she could be an actress. 

Louise Montague is tall and fair, and I think is the most 
beautiful woman I ever saw. She wore a gown of black 
velvet, with small diamonds in her ears and at her throat, 
and her hands were covered with quaintly set rings. She 
did not seem over-dressed, however, but to be a very elegant, 
well-attired woman. She sang a few songs to us during 
the afternoon, and has a sweet, pure voice with a pathetic 
little note in it one would not expect. I am going to see 
her Saturday with Yan. 

February 2, 1880. 

Louise Montague and I are getting great friends, the 
other night 1 had her up at Rosebower. I told her wy 
j f iend Mrs. brammelly who occupied the flat, was out of 


32 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


town, and I was going to keep house for her while she wag 
gone — and if she and General Poynter, and Mr. Goddard 
would come up we might have a few games of whist! 

She looked at me a little closely, I thought, after looking 
about Rosebower somewhat more observingly than I 
had intended she should. Over the bed is a photogravure 
of Iris and Phoebus, and at the foot of the bed a very 
pretty ballet girl sits with one foot resting on the opposite 
knee, leaving in view a shapely pair of limbs not in the 
least concealed by the cloud of fluffy tulle above them. 

“ Your friend Mrs. Gammell is fond of the human 
form divine,” she said, as she sat by the bed tying her 
little bronze slippers. 

“ Oh yes,” I said, indifferently, “ she is an artist and 
picked up these things, I believe, while studying in 
Europe.” 

Oh, what an untruth-teller I am become! 

I dreamed the other night that I was dead ! A long stream 
of people were stretched before the Judgment Throne. 
Gabriel, with a brilliant golden bugle, stood in front of the 
throne and called us one by one to appear. I shivered 
with dread and looked about to discover some knot-hole 
through which I might gently glide, and then I found 
it was too late; there was a loud toot on the horn and a 
terrible voice commanded, “ Annanias! Sapphira and 
Penelope Gray , come forth /” 

Pebruary 28. 

“ Mrs. Gammell ” is frequently “ out of toiun ” now, 
and Louise, the General, Van and I spend a merry evening 
at Rosebower. We do not play whist nowadays; we play 
poker, with little white, yellow, blue and red ivory chips; 
we make believe it is money and keep the score in a little 
book, and say we owe each other the amounts lost to the 
winner, but I will not allow them really to play for money, 
i should feel so degraded to gamble ! They all lauyD at in* 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


33 


and call me the Puritan Maid, but are good-natured about 
my scruples. I saw Louise one night with a twenty-dollar 
gold piece Van had had. I knew it because he had sat 
scratching it with his penknife while talking with me. I 
at once asked her how she got it, the suspicion crossing my 
mind that, after all, they were settling the accounts and 
Yan paying my losses; but she told me Yan had thought- 
fully offered it to her in exchange for some soiled bills of 
hers, and I was quite ashamed to have thought her capable 
of real gambling. 

Easter Sunday. 

I have gone to spend Sunday in Lowell, but somehow I 
have gotten no farther than Rosebower! Yan has gone to 
the hotel with Louise and the General, so I have time for 
a few words while I wait for him. Dear old Yan! he is 
very lovely to me, and sometimes I think I don’t love him 
enough. Of course they all wanted to play poker to-night 
and I wouldn’t. Why, it seems to me I could no more 
touch a card on Sunday than I could throw my prayer- 
book into the fire. I would expect to be instantly struck 
dead. I said if they would wait until midnight I would 
play, but Louise has a rehearsal at nine in the morning and 
couldn’t sit up all night, she said, and Yan kicked me 
under the table, so I suppose he didn’t want to sit up all 
night, either. So I came in the bedroom and read the 
Evening Service, and they all played poker and were dis- 
gusted with me ! I suppose it was very disagreeable or 
me to go off and sulk, and Yan brought me a glass of wine 
every little while and acted as though I had been trying to 
make it pleasant instead of unpleasant for him ! 

Perhaps it is very foolish of me, after all ! What am I 
that I should look askance at breaking the Sabbath? 
What difference does it all make whether I play poker on 
a Sunday or a week-day? Whether I smoke cigarettes 
in secret or with others ? Whether I play cards for money 
3 


34 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


or for chips? Do I not strain at a gnat and swallow a 
camel? Am I not a liar, a breaker of the seventh com- 
mandment, utterly disregarding purity, decency, virtue, 
honor? Is it worth while to turn up my nose at one sin 
and alien tly embrace so very many others? 

Easter Monday. 

I have bines! Louise says I act like a fool! “ Of course 
I know Van Buren adores you,” she said, “ and that you 
are in love with him. Any one not in infancy or their 
dotage can see that. But if you care anything about keep- 
ing him in love with you, you are not going the right way 
to do it ! He put up with your crankiness last night, and 
perhaps he may the next time, but I think about the third 
time you’ll find you’ve tried it one time too many. It won’t 
do to be a Puritan with a man of the world. If you never 
commit a worse sin than playing a game of cards on Sun- 
day your chances of Paradise will be very favorable ! Why, 
in all the Western cities the theatres are open and we play 
every Sunday night. Sunday is a day of rest; not a day to 
sew in, or dig trenches, if you can help it — but a day to 
recreate in, to be happy in; if one is happier going to a 
picnic or driving on the boulevard, reading a novel or 
throwing cards on a table, why that is what they should do; 
not mew themselves up over a Bible or Commentary or 
Illustrations in the Economy of Salvation ! And if you 
are depriving another person of happiness by your own 
selfishness, what good do you get out of the Bible studying? 
And I tell you what, Penelope, Yan Buren Goddard 
isn’t a fellow to let go! He is influential, rich, clever, 
handsome, and as far as I can see very indulgent to you, 
Mrs. Gammell!” 

What ! ! ! ” I said. 

“Yes, Mrs. Gammell! Of course I saw that at once! 
I haven’t dared congratulate you before, dear, but I do it 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


35 


now ! How on earth a rigid little Puritan like yon should 
ever have set up as mistress of an establishment like Kose- 
bower is an amazement to me ten times a day! You al- 
ways seem so utterly out of place. But, my dear, you need 
advice. When a man loves you and isn't your husband, 
and you are selfish and inconsiderate and annoying, some 
day he is going to get tired of it all and pack 
up his little knapsack and hid you adieu, and you 
don't get any chance to show him you will amend, 
because he doesn't have to come back, you know. How, if 
you are his wife, he usually comes hack when his anger has 
died out, and you can then show him how sorry you are 
and how you intend to think more of him than yourself in 
the future. 

“ Always try to do the little things you know will please 
your lover; make little sacrifices for him, subdue your 
prejudices in favor of his opinions. If you want to read a 
novel and he wishes to go for a walk, put up the novel and 
smile pleasantly when he asks you, and tell him you are 
glad he wishes you with him. Notice what he likes and 
dislikes and try to mould yourself accordingly. Always 
believe what he tells you, outwardly ; you may have your 
own private little opinion, you know, hut don't dispute any 
elaborate tale he may bring you about why he was detained 
till midnight when he'd been trying to come home for 
hours; and don’t ask him questions, nor to make you 
promises. If he comes in and makes no explanation of 
some hour you are curious about, pass it over in silence, 
and he'll be grateful to you for not causing him to deliver 
to you the little romances he has been concocting and feels 
ashamed to look into your trustful eyes and tell you. If he 
wants you to know where he has been he will tell you all 
about it, and if he doesn’t want you to know, it's no use to 
ask him. And the same way with promises; let him know 
what your wishes are, what you hope he will do; and if he 


3b' A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 

cares for you he will pay attention to them just as much as 
to a promise. If he doesn't care for you, and you bind 
him to a promise, he'll only manufacture a few rods more 
asphalt for Tophet ! 

“ Then, dear, if he comes in and tries to go to bed on 
the bureau and stands his boots up on the leg-tops in- 
stead of the soles, just paddle out of bed and place 
them properly for him, and get him a tumbler of ice- 
water and tuck him away in the sheets as gently as 
though he had a fever; and he will be a deal more apt 
to come in early the next night than he will if you leave 
him to bump his head on all the furniture in the room 
while you disdainfully look on with bitter w^ords and 
upbraidings. 

“There, Pen, I'm a garrulous old thing! Good-bye. 
Come down some afternoon this week and I'll take you to 
drive in Billy Fair's dog-cart; he said I could use it any 
day. Now, don’t forget!" And off she flew before I 
could quite get my breath after such a ponderous lecture. 
But I've written it down as quick as I could, before I 
should forget it all, and I shall read it over some day and see 
what I think about it. 

Tuesday. 

I don't think I believe in those views of Louise's. Why„ 
a woman just makes a slave of herself, and is a namby- 
pamby, weak little idiot to consider her husband or her 
lover only, and never herself. “ Where does her good time 
come in?" I asked Louise to-day. “ Why, in seeing what 
a comfort and satisfaction and pleasure she is to the man 
she loves, of course, goosey." 

I don't believe I love Van enough to give up everything 
to him, and be happy merely in seeing he is pleased. 

May 15. 

I am so glad school is nearly over. I can't think of my 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


3: 


studies and give them due attention with the many other 
things that crowd into my daily life. 

The first of the month. Van came to me and said: 

“ Little one, I regard you as my wife. We have a 
house and entertain friends and live happily together, yet 
I never give you anything hardly, because you seem to be 
so averse to gifts from me. Now, carina, I am not going 
to have this so any longer; I want you to have some 
money, at least. Every month I will put fifty dollars in 
this little box, and you are to go to it when you want any 
change.” 

I assured him I never would touch it; that I should feel 
like the women of the street to touch a penny of his money, 
and there it has stayed untouched. But to-day I heard 
such a sad story of a poor woman whose husband is a 
cripple, and who has seven little children and nothing for 
them to eat, and I think I will take the money to them, 
and after this I will accept it each month and spend it in 
charity. Perhaps I can do a little good in the world in 
atonement for the sin in my life. I believe I will visit the 
hospitals and take flowers and books to the poor sick. I 
think of the sick because I am feeling so ill myself. I do 
not care to eat, and the odor of cooking makes me so 
deathly faint! I don't care for anything but figs. I 
think I will have a luncheon of figs and brandy and 
water now ! Au revoir. 

May 30. 

%{ Lips say * God be pitiful ' that never yet said f God be 
praised.'” Well, the end has come! What to do — where 
to go — oh, I am in such despair! I am so ill! I can eat 
nothing ! To go to the table every day and see the food, 
drives me frantic . I have made every excuse I can con- 
ceive for not eating, but they begin to wwry about me and 
fear I have been studying too hard , and talk of send- 
ing me aw#y at once school is closed to my grand- 


38 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


mother FeatherstonehauglPs — a fate I must escape! For 
Grandma would dose me with horrible messes, and Heaven 
knows I could not stand that now. 0 God, be pitiful ! 1 

do not deserve mercy, but for the sake of my mother, my 
father, my little sisters, let this fate pass from me ! To be 
the mother of a fatherless baby! Could any disgrace he 
more poignant? — could any destiny be more terrible — 
more horrible? Oh, it is cruel, cruel! and yet how dare 
I complain? Who is cruel? — God? And in one breath 
do I ask Him for mercy, and in the next reproach Him? 
Was I not brought up in purity and honesty ? And if I 
stray into the bramble-bushes, is it because Cod made the 
briers that I am scratched and torn? 

Has it not been taught me that we must lie in whatever 
bed we make for ourselves, and now do I expect to escape 
because I am Penelope Gray ? Oh, were I not Penelope 
Gray! Were I Penelope any one else in all the world! 
Were I the honest wife of a cab-driver! Were I — hut 
bah! I must look it in the face! I am the mistress of Van 
Buren Goddard, Esq., and in seven months more will he 
the mother of his child! 

Block Island, August 11. 

I am just in from a walk on Pebbly Beach with Van 
Buren. We went down to our old nook and he read to me 
“ Guinevere,” as a year ago he read it to me in the self-same 
spot. Only a year ago — and it seems the length of a life- 
time! Surely I have changed a hundred years in that 
short space. How innocent and glad and merry I was 
that sixteenth birthday which seems so far away, and is 
really but twelve months back! What slight things gave 
me happiness! How little I knew below the surface of 
life ! What an ignorant little thing I was ! And now I 
am only seventeen — but I know what life means ! How 
wretched I was a year ago to-night! How I longed to die! 
How hard it was to hold my head up ! How it seemed 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


39 


to me I must be branded — that every one who saw me 
must know! 

And to-day? Well, I think now — what does it all mat- 
ter? Why cry over spilt milk? It is in the “ Story of a 
Bad Boy,” I think, where the grandfather remarks, “ It 
can't he gathered up, and it's no use crying over it. Pitch 
into the cow and get some more milk, is my motto.'' I 
can't go back — I cannot re-live the past. I am letting my- 
self drift with the tide. Now and then I can do some 
little helpful act for some one ill or unhappy, but my own 
life has gone out of my hands. I have given it to Van 
Buren. I have lost the ambition to be still faithful to 
some fancied virtue. Yes; I simply drift now. 

I do not think I felt quite this way until I was ill. 
Those terrible weeks in which I looked the ghastly possi- 
bility in the face, of being an outcast upon the face of the 
earth, of my family refusing to see me, my friends shun- 
ning me and drawing their skirts aside as I passed ! The 
iove of Van Buren then seemed to stand as a meagre offset 
to this calamity. I hated him ! and then I grew very des- 
perate and told Louise, and to her I owe it that “ while 
calling upon her '' I was taken ill, as she wrote my mother, 
and would be unable to be moved for a few days. She 
kept me in her own room and took care of me night and 
day. My mother came and brought a nurse, and ques- 
tioned me as to how I knew Miss Montague, and insisted I 
must be taken home; but the doctor Louise had installed 
said I was in a high fever, must be kept very quiet, could 
not possibly be moved for two weeks, and she must see me 
only a few moments each day, concluding by ordering both 
her and Louise to leave the room at once. Louise came 
back ! and Mamma's nurse remained with me. There was 
no help for it. 

Then at lp>st I went home again — a somewhat pale and 
subdued edition of myself. My class had graduated with- 


40 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


out me; everything was packed and the house ready to 
close for the summer. I folded away my own belongings, 
and came back to the sea, to the place I loved — and hated; 
to the place where one year ago to-day the course of my 
whole life grew changed and astray. 

November 3. 

I am awaiting Van at Rosebower, and am just back from 
'my weekly visit at the hospital. I find so many interesting 
people there, poor things ! — and I write letters for them, 
read to them, play cassino or checkers with some who are 
growing stronger, or show them how to do some easy em- 
broidery or simple crochet-work, and they seem so grateful 
and so glad to see me that I quite look forward to Wednes- 
day afternoon as one of the pleasantest in the week. I 
took some roses this afternoon to a pretty woman who is 
dying with consumption. 

“ Oh, Miss Gray!” she exclaimed, “ God grant you may 
never know suffering or evil ! God keep you always the 
pure, sweet little girl you are to-day.” I bent down and 
kissed her forehead and went over to the window for a few 
moments. “ As sweet and pure as I am to-day — as sweet 
and pure — !” I wanted to cry out, “ I am low and vile; I 
have a hideously black soul within me; I am a hypocrite 
and an impostor !” When I turned back she was crying 
softly, and I went away. I wonder what her history is. 

November 9. 

I was at Page & Bailey's to-day, buying peppermints for 
Grandma, and Mr. Jerome, whom I met at her house last 
winter, came in. I had not seen him since, and to my sur- 
prise he recognized me at once. 

“ I have wondered where you kept yourself hidden,” he 
said. 

“ I do not believe you ever wondered in the least,” I re- 
plied. “ You have just remembered I existed, and you 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


41 


wouldn't have known me at all except that I looked so like 
Mamma !" I was surprised at the aggrieved tone I found 
myself using, hut I had thought of him so many times, and 
so often hoped I would meet him, until I had come to be- 
lieve he kept himself out of sight in pure malevolence. He 
looked at me thoughtfully a moment. 

“ I have known you existed for twelve months. I have 
not forgotten it one day for twelve months. I have some- 
times wished I could." He said this gravely, so gravely 
that I was indignant. Did the man think I wanted him to 
make love to me in a candy store ! Was he making fun of 
me because I had spoken so childishly? I took my parcel 
and laughed lightly. 

“ Oblivion cannot he lured l" I quoted, sententiously. 
He held the door open for me, hesitated a moment, seemed 
to change his, mind about purchasing candies, and came 
with me. 

“ Whither bound ?" he asked, gayly. 

“ To Grandmother Gray's." 

“ And may I go with you ?" 

“ ‘ Oh yes, kind sir,' " I laughingly said. 

It was a lovely fall afternoon, the air clear and cold ; we 
walked over the Common and through the Garden to Marl- 
borough street. I was glad I had on a pretty frock. It 
was a new Everall gown which had just come home, of 
palest tan-colored broadcloth, and my little sealskin cape 
and black walking-hat gave it tone. 

January 1, 1881. 

Louise is back in Boston again and little Miss Thorne is 
in the same company. Ever since my illness Mamma has 
entertained a high regard for Louise, so I think I can get 
away to be with her frequently this spring. Papa is in 
Europe, and Mamma so absorbed in society she accepts any 
excuse for my absence I may proffer. As she is out late 
five nights of the week, I come in with my little lato^-key 


42 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


at any time before midnight, and all is well. Or else Peter 
drives around to Mrs. Gammell’s for me after depositing 
her at reception, dinner, or ball. Of course Mamma does 
not know I am at Mrs. GammelVs ! I tell her I am going 
to study my French or English literature (the two studies 
I am taking a post-graduate course in) with Mollie Marl- 
borough or Hester Clark or Joanna Copley. And Eve in- 
structed Peter that Fm not at any of these places, but at 
Mrs. GammelVs, “ whom Mamma does not like because 
she’s not in society,” and that there he will always find 
me ! 

I do not give all the fifty dollars in my money-box to 
charity now, I give some of it to Peter. Hot to buy his 
silence, of course — I say nothing about that; I only say, 
“ Peter, your wife must need a new bonnet,” or “ Doesn’t 
the baby need a new cloak, Peter?” And he always says, 
“ Thank you. Miss Penelope, she do.” 

Monday, April 17. 

Louise, Bijou Thorne and I, Billy Fair, Ned Slade and 
Pat Brooks (who are three Harvard men Louise knew) had 
a very jolly time last evening. We met in the Tremont 
House parlor, and a very smart T-cart and still smarter 
dog-cart awaited us at the back door. It was bright moon- 
light and we drove over the mill-dam around into Brook- 
line and stopped at a hotel called the Hawthorne, which 
I had never heard of before — a big white house set back 
from the road among large trees, and which did not seem 
like a hotel in the least. Here we had a delicious little 
supper, and then played poker. I won six dollars and 
seventy-five cents, and Louise lost one dollar and seventy- 
five, so I paid her loss and took five dollars. Miss Thorne 
won nine dollars. We have agreed to unite our winnings 
and invest in something pretty for the boys’ rooms. 

“ Pen/’ said Louise, “ do you remember the Sunday night 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


43 


yon read the prayer-book while three sinners sat around 
the card-table ? Did you exorcise the evil spirit ?" 

“ How does it usually turn out with three against one ?" 
I retorted. 

“ And how you swooped down on me,” she continued, 
“ about that twenty-dollar gold piece Fd just earned by 
the sweat of my brow and the luck of holding four aces to 
Van Buren Goddard's four kings !" 

“ Louise !" I exclaimed. “ Did you lie to me ?" 

“Lie to you, dear ? Well, when a girl says to you, ‘ I 
hope you are not doing such a low, vile thing as to play for 
money !' you're not apt to say ‘ Oh yes, I am !' You hasten 
to say * How dare you have such a thought ?' It is well 
always to avoid unnecessary frankness !" The boys all 
howled; all but Ned Slade, he looked very sober. He was 
with me alone a few moments a little later. 

“ Don't let them persuade you it's right to play for 
money, if you think it isn't," he said, quite seriously. 

“ Oh no, they don't influence me. I used to think it 
was wrong, but every one seems to think the game more 
fun playing in earnest, and a little game, where one loses 
or wins five or ten dollars only, seems little harm, and I 
always spend the money I win either in charity or else buy 
some little thing for the loser. Miss Thorne and I are 
going to buy a memento for your Holworthy rooms to- 
morrow; which had you rather have, a skull I saw at Top- 
ham's with a mouse crawling in one of the eye-sockets, or a 
little pug-dog down at French's which looks just ready to 
bark ?" I stepped over to the mantel and lighted a 
cigarette. 

“ Well ?" I said, as he was silent. 

“ I wish you'd throw that cigarette in the grate," he 
said, petulantly. “ It is not becoming to you! You don't 
look like a girl who smokes cigarettes and gambles. How 
the devil — I beg your pardon — " And just here they called 


a 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


to us that the carts were ready, and I never knew “ how 
the devil ” did, for Mr. Slade drove in the dog-cart with 
Miss Thorne, and I occupied the hack seat of the T-cart 
with Mr. Brooks. 

“ How dumb we are,” he said, as I had answered only in 
monosyllables to his incessant chatter, “ and I thought 
you were such a jolly little thing going out !” 

“ The champagne makes me sleepy,” I apologized. 

“ The dear little girlie, so sleepy and no pillow for its 
’ittle head,” and he placed his arm around me and drew 
my head onto his shoulder. Just then the dog-cart passed 
us. I saw Mr. Slade’s grave glance rest for a moment 
upon me. 

“ What repose !” laughed Bijou, gayly. I sat up at once 
and talked merrily the rest of the way to town, but Mr. 
Slade’s words kept coming to me. 

“ You do not look like a girl who smokes and gambles !” 
And yet that is what lam! A girl who smokes, gambles, 
drinks ! A girl who deceives her parents — a girl who lives 
an impure life with a man who belongs to another woman! 
I wonder ivhy I do not look like it ; it may be my eyes ; 
sometimes, when I look into them in my mirror, they look 
back at me with such a frank, honest, innocent expres- 
sion I can hardly believe they are mine. 

May 3. 

The summer is almost here. Louise and Bijou have 
gone to San Francisco; Van Buren is just . starting for 
Europe; Papa has come home and brought me the sweetest 
little watch with enameled forget-me-nots, and a dress all 
pink and silver. I do not feel very well, but the sea air 
will soon make me strong again when we go next month to 
Block Island. I met Mrs. Jerome in the hall just now. 
I wonder who she knows in the house. Probably the 
dressmaker in the top flat ! I waited till she had turned 
the corner before I put my latch-key into the door of Rose- 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIMY. 


45 


bower, contenting myself with ringing the bell of the 
empty domain, until then. 

Block Islamd, July 3. 

I have been looking back, ma chere confidante , at my 
jubilant pages written herein two years ago to-day, when 
the world seemed to me a great beautiful Eden, and a tulle 
frock a blissful event ! And how does to-day differ? Well, 
I am at Block Island to-day as then; many of the same 
people sit about me on the great roomy piazza; there is 
to be a german to-night in the parlor, and I will wear a 
new gown and some beautiful opals Mamma gave me to- 
day. But to-night I do not dance with Tim Blake — he is 
in Europe — and I do not walk to the pier with Van 
Buren and come in with th'e snuffles, for he likewise is 
across the sea. And to-day I am eighteen, not sixteen, 
and on July 3d I do not dwell in Eden ! Monsieur Serpent 
has called, and I am dwelling in the next lot. The walls 
are so high I cannot see over, yet I can readily believe there 
was an Eden — and is — an Eden. However, the dear 
apple was so alluring I cast my lot in other meadows. 

I saw on the register just now, “ Edward Binney Slade, 
Boston.” I wonder if that is the Ned Slade who was of our 
Hawthorne party last May, and whom I so scandalized by 
my cigarette smoking. I think he would like me very well 
here, where I sit on the piazza and do fancy-work, or else 
read the “ Science Primers ” on the rocks. To be sure, in 
my room there is “ Sappho” and Dumas fils' “ Camille” 
on the shelf, a few bottles of Chateau. Yquem close beside, 
and a box of Egyptian cigarettes; but you would never 
suppose they belonged to a dignified maiden in a trim 
white serge suit, who wanders pensively over the rocks 
with a bit of knitting in her hands and a Primer on 
Geology under her arm, would you? 

Now I'm going to confide in you — they don’t l The girl 
I have just described is Penelope Gray, of Falconsheight 


46 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIMY. 


and the gill who reads “ Camille ” with a cigarette between 
her lips is Mrs . Gammell, of Rosebower. 

I give you my word they are widely different maidens. 

August 4. 

It was — it is — tlie Mr. Slade of the May supper party, 
and he dances superbly. It was in the german, and we 
were taken out in the same figure — the ribbon — and fell to 
each other as partners. He had not recognized me until I 
smiled and spoke. He is only in on a yacht for a few days, 
hut I saw him speaking with Mamma, and they seemed to 
be great friends, and I heard him say, as he left her, “ I 
shall surely call on you at Falconsheight.” "When he re- 
joined me, he said : 

“ Why, I did not know you were one of us!” 

“ Indeed! and what is one of us?” 

“ You know,” and he looked at me in a puzzled way; 
“ you said nothing about living in Boston, and I supposed 
you were one of Miss Montague’s company, only here for a 
few days. I rather think she gave me to understand so, 
though for the life of me I couldn’t reconcile you to that 
fast set. You seemed awfully out of place, somehow.” 

“ Pardon me,” I interrupted, in a kept-over-night-on-ice 
tone, “ I think you forget you speak of my friends. Be- 
cause they are not strait-laced Puritans you certainly 
have no cause to consider them fast or ill-bred; possibly 
flippant , and not always considerate of cast-iron rules of 
propriety; hut they are lovely, sweet girls, and I love Louise 
Montague dearly! Good-evening, Mr. Slade.” 

I started down the hallway, but he overtook me. 

“ How, really, I didn’t mean to offend you — I’m awfully 
sorry — I ask pardon. You see, I’ve known your mother for 
years, and when you meet a girl out on a lark with some 
actresses and estimate her as is natural, with such a reflec- 
tion upon her, and then find oui she’s the daught-or of *uie 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


47 


of your mother’s friends — really, you know — it is — it is a — 
surprise.” 

“ Good-evening, Mr. Slade,” I repeated, and went up- 
stairs. 

October 3, 1881. 

My charming little arrangement of last winter of having 
Peter call for me at Mrs. Gammell’s when he had left 
Mamma at her reception, cannot, alas ! he repeated this 
winter, as I will be left ivith Mamma at party, ball or 
dinner. That all comes of being eighteen and having one’s 
studies all finished, and I don’t see any way to get out of 
it. I could be ill one night, or two, but one can’t be laid 
up with sick headache all winter long. No, it’s no use. I 
will have to go, and poor Van will have to put up with 
what little niches of time I can pilfer for him till Lent 
comes. The other girls are wild with delight. You ap- 
proach a group and will surely hear mentioned either a 
Harvard Assembly, “ Almack’s,” or “ Papanti’s,” Madame 
Rose or Hollander. Toilettes and partners are now never- 
ending topics. I wish I could enjoy it, too. 

Rosebower, October 29. 

Mr. Slade called last evening. Mamma was out, and 
Papa had several business men in the smoking-room, so we 
had the drawing-room to ourselves. I don’t know what 
possessed me last night. I began by being Penelope Gray — 
such a very dignified person — and then a spirit of evil came 
into my soul and I was Mrs. Gammell to the finger-tips. I 
know I puzzled him very much. Finally, taking his cue 
from my spirits, evidently, he asked me would I lunch with 
him the following day. 

“ Mamma and I?” 

“No; you and yourself.” 

“ Louise and I?” I persisted, gayly. 

“ No; you and /, quite by ourselves.” 


48 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


“Why, certainly not/* I said. 

“ Why not?” 

“ You know very well it would be an outlandish pro- 
ceeding!” 

“But you do not mind outlandish proceedings; au con - 
traire, you delight in them !” 

I was offended at this, and said, more soberly, “ Mr. 
Slade, it is altogether another affair to dine with you in 
the company of four others, to dining with you entirely by 
myself.” 

“ Do you think I would abduct you or that you wouldn’t 
get enough to eat? Do I look like either an ogre or a 
boarding-house steward ?” 

“It is useless to discuss it,” I said. “Let us talk of 
something else. What do you think of Pauline Claren- 
don’s marriage? Wasn’t it too had she could not be mar- 
ried in church? I would not feel half married in a house, 
it seems to me.” He laughed. 

“ Well, I don’t know. I think it wouldn’t matter much 
to me where I was married; what would seem to me being 
only half married would be the marrying some one 
divorced. But Bowditch is a capital fellow, and I fancy 
Ms former unhappiness was not of his own making.” 

“ She had to have a special dispensation from the 
Bishop, you know,” said I. I was sitting by a small table 
in the corner where my prayer-book happened to be lying, 
and I unconsciously took it in my hands. He jumped up 
and took it from me. 

“ Should we find a special dispensation in to-day’s psalm, 
will you lunch with me to-morrow?” 

“ Certainly,” I said, laughingly. He' opened it at the 
twenty-eighth day Evening Prayer, and read to me, “Feed 
all flesh.” 

That is why I am just from a jolly little luncheon with 
him, served in a private dining-room at Parker’s. I de- 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


49 


dined to drink anything but a bottle of ale; after which 
we drew our chairs up to the fire and discussed the forma- 
tion of our club, for a club it is to be, and is to be named 
The Dispensation Club, with a monthly dinner to which 
only members are to be invited. It is to have a constitu- 
tion, by-laws, and duly elected officers — also a chronicle 
written by the members in turn. We balloted for the 
officers, electing them as follows by a unanimous vote : 

Penelope Y. Gray, President and Secretary. 

Edward B. Slade, Vice-president and Treasurer ; he 
the compiler of the constitution and I the designer of the 
crest. 

I have just been thinking it all over and this came into 
my head: “When does a woman know why she does any- 
thing? Did Eve know, when Mr. Serpent offered her the 
apple, tvhy she ate it? Not she!” 

November 15. 

I was walking over the West street mall from Grandma's 
to-day when I met Mr. Jerome. Somehow I never see him 
that I do not feel all my detestableness. He seems to 
look way to the depths of my soul — if any gaze could pene- 
trate such muddy depths! — and I feel a great longing to 
cry out, “ I am all that you estimate me, I admit it — I con- 
fess it; despise me to your heart's content.'' Ar^d then, 
with this feeling strong upon me, I at once do all in my 
power to impress him with my guilelessness, my innocence, 
my absolute candor, and return his searching gaze with one 
as unruffled and frank as ever rested upon the countenance 
of the Sistine Madonna ! 

He turned and walked with me a little way, telling me 
he will dine again at my grandmother's on Thanksgiving 
Day with Mrs. Jerome, and about some pretty tricks of his 
baby, who will soon be a year old, and who has been named 
Nathalie, after a fancy of his wife's. When he had placed 
me on my car and left me I felt so depressed and melan- 
4 


50 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


choly ! I do not understand the strange influence he exerts 
oyer me. I meet him seldom. I do not know if I like 
him or dislike him; but he has a strange fascination for 
me, and I often find myself wishing to see him. 

November 20. 

I am lazy to-day ! I came up to the Bower early, donned 
the pink crepe tea-gown ruffled with pink lace, and with 
tiny hows of the same hued velvet, which Van Buren 
brought me from Paris; pinned at the belt a bunch of 
Catharine Mermet roses Mr. Slade had sent to Falcons- 
height; put a silver comb into the little Grecian coil upon 
my head which Van likes so well; lit every gas-jet, and 
composed myself upon the divan with Amiel. 

“ Savoir, aimer, et pouvoir,” I read, “cest la vie com- 
plete.” 

To know, to love, and to be strong ! And what more could 
one desire of the gods tharuthis trinity of good gifts? To know 
— to understand — life, love, living! A year ago I thought 
I knew all these. To-night I think I know none ! Life ? 
I know a chapter in the book, but I begin to appreciate that 
one chapter does not complete a volume. And love? Ah, 
here is the bitterness. Surely I have never loved him ! 

What would I sacrifice for him? Nothing. Do I long 
for his presence and feel my heart beat more quickly at his 
approach? Never. Do I care for his caresses? As I might 
for my brother’s. What am I to do? Shall I tell him it is 
all a mistake? — I have been infatuated; am fond of him — 
feel sincerely attached to him, but do not love him, and 
suggest we part ? Is it not a far viler sin to live with a man 
whom one does not care all one’s soul for than the living 
with one who is one’s very life? How does one feel to love, 
I wonder — to love with all one’s being and understanding? 
I wonder if I am capable of great love, or if I love Van to 
the extent of my temperament. Perhaps I am one of the 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


51 


women who never love intensely, who never feel more than 
fond of one to whom they give their life; in that case I 
would be wrong to leave Van. Oh, would I not be wrong, 
anyway, when I think how generous and good he has been 
to me, how he never says an unkind word to me, how he 
made this little home for my happiness, how he loves me, 
and how he cares for no one in the world beside? how bit- 
ter and sad his life has been — and he tells me I am the only 
bright spot in it, his one gleam of sunshine ! 

How abominable I have been to have had these thoughts ! 
To leave him! My dear, good Van Buren, who would do 
anything to save me a moment's pain, and here I have act- 
ually meditated breaking his heart! It is all the fault of 
Monsieur Amiel. He shall lie at the bottom of the book- 
case buried from view. To know! to love! Why do I 
wish for knowledge which may prove a thousand times 
more bitter than Dead Sea fruit ? 

November 30. 

The Dispensation Club duly assembled at dinner last 
evening, with a full attendance of all its members. It was 
agreed that the “stated meetings" should be held at the 
Parker House on the 29th of each month, and the “ occa- 
sional meetings " at Falconsheight whenever I saw fit to 
issue an invitation thereto. My drawing of the crest was 
duly presented and admired, and my record of the previous 
dinner and subsequent meetings of the club read from the 
little book in which we are to keep the Dispensation Club 
Biography, and then given into the keeping of the Vice- 
president, who will write. the next chapter. Next the con- 
stitution was read by the compiler and unanimously 
adopted. The crest is a facsimile of a Bass' white label 
ale bottle, the label (instead of bearing the usual lettering) 
decorated by the word “ Dispensation " in large red letters 
at the top; below, an open prayer-book, with the words 


52 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


“ Feed all flesh ” on the page. At the bottom of the label 
(where one usually reads “ Burton-on-Trent ”) appears the 
Club motto, “ Qui vit sans folie, n’est pas si sage qu’il 
croit ” in tiny red script. I had sketched it in inks on a 
bit of white Bolton cloth, and it was duly gummed into 
the minute-book with a red satin background, where it 
made a most effective frontispiece. 

The grip and countersign that saucy fellow had arranged 
should consist of our duly joining hands and lips l But 
I protested against any such process, and my veto was 
accepted, after much argument, “ pro tempore,” he de- 
clared. 

The constitution I here copy, Madame Journal, lest in 
some after-day an undue accident befalling the sole “ Bi- 
ography,” I may find pleasure in rereading its ridiculous 
articles: 

Constitution of the Dispensation Club. 


Article I. Nothing connected with the Club shall be 
known to any one but the members, and it shall be held a 
highly dishonorable act for any member to mention any of 
the proceedings of the Club to any one but a member. 

Article II. The name of the Club shall be the 
Dispensation Club. 

Article III. The officers of the Club shall consist of a 
President, Vice-president, Treasurer, and Secretary. 

Article IV. The duties of the President shall be to 
make such decisions as are assigned to that officer by 

Article V, Section III of the constitution, and to enforce 
such decisions in the manner which seems most fitting. 

Section II. The duties of the Vice-president shall be to 
assist the President in promoting the objects for which the 
Club is formed (See Article V, Section II.) 

Section III. The duties of the Treasurer shall be to at- 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


53 


tend to the finances of the Club and see that it is provided 
with a suitable dinner at each “Stated Meeting.” 

(See Article VI.) 

Section I Y . The duties of the Secretary shall be to keep 
the records and attend to the correspondence of the Club; 
to provide light refreshment for the “ Occasional 
Meetings” of the Club; and to issue invitations thereto, 
whenever an improperly long interval has passed without 
one. The Secretary shall also prepare for the Club a coat 
of arms of suitable design, and hearing the mottoes “Feed 
all flesh,” and “ Qui vit sans folie, West pas si sage qu’il 
croit.” 

Article V. Section I. The objects of the Club shall 
he as follows : to improve the members by the promotion 
of sociability and good fellowship among them; and to 
contribute its mite to the attainment of the long-hoped-for 
millennium, when all mankind shall love each other. 

Section II. To this end all unnecessary formality and 
ceremoniousness between members shall be avoided during 
Club meetings. 

Section III. All questions of etiquette and propriety 
shall he referred to the President, from whose decision 
there shall be no appeal. 

Article VI. There shall be a meeting on the 29th day 
of every month, which meeting shall be known as the 
“ Stated Meetings” of the Club. Additional meetings may 
be held at any time, and shall be known as “ Adjourned or 
Occasional Meetings.” 

Article VII. The Stated Meetings shall he called to or- 
der by the interchange of the grip and signs of the Club, 
the members to remain standing during the ceremony. 

Article VIII. Section I. Each member of the Club 
shall, at the first Stated Meeting after the initiation of 
said member, designate a successor. 

Section II. Each member shall keep all papers relating 


54 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


in any way to the affairs of the Club in a sealed envelope, 
directed to the successor designated, and containing a 
paper labelled “For further information, address — ” 
followed by the address of either the Secretary or Treas- 
urer of the Club, as may seem best to the individual 
member. 

Then, in the case of any accident to a member, the 
bereaved friends would naturally forward the papers to the 
successor, and the Club would thus continue. 

Article IX. The present membership being considered 
perfect, the constitution contains no provision for the elec- 
tion of new members, except as a successor, as aforesaid. 

Article X. This constitution may be amended by a 
unanimous vote of the members at a Stated Meeting of 
the Club. 

January 2, 1882. 

Christmas week was one of dissipation. Mamma gave 
me a ball on Christmas Eve, which I really found myself 
hugely enjoying; Cheney’s waltzes are always glorious, and 
Green got us up a very dainty supper. I feel sure it was a 
success, and that I looked very well in a cream colored 
crepe de chine, with a little band of pink rose-buds 
closely massed about the top of the corsage, which was cut 
off round, just at the shoulders, like a child’s frock. 

Ned Slade led the german and I was his happy partner, 
for he waltzes delightfully, and it is always a pleasure to 
have a turn with him. 

Then came a Berkeley Hall party, and a little dance 
at Papanti’s, where I wore a yellow tulle gown and Mare- 
chal Niel roses, with a topaz comb and necklace that 
Grandma had given me at Christmas. Van’s New Year 
dinner had been postponed until to-day, for last night Mrs. 
Hollis Hamilton gave a large dance, where I was the partner 
of Mr. Donovan Grant for the cotillon; and Mr. Jerome 
gave me my supper. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


55 


I have a fancy I do not like Mrs. Jerome. She was very 
dowdily dressed last night, and her gloves were actually 
soiled. Perhaps she is too intellectual to pay heed to the 
frivolities of apparel. At any rate she carried a scarlet 
fan with a garnet velvet dress, which made the eyes of 
every one in the room ache. 

January 10. 

The Dispensation Club's “ Stated Meeting,” owing to 
engagements of either the President or Vice-president, or 
both, had to he postponed ten days, and so only took place 
last evening. Then the President was forced to reconsider 
her veto to the proposed countersign and grip, and give in 
to the demands of the Vice-president. He, arch Tcnave, 
insisted that a two-thirds vote overcame the President's 
veto; and as I weighed but one-third, and he, nearly two- 
thirds of our joint weight, he constituted two-thirds of the 
Club. Was not that arrogance? And that, as it was 
never meant the Dispensation should become a debating 
club , I would show much better tact in yielding gracefully. 

I yielded. I trust I did it qracefullu. 

January 20. 

Louise, Ned Slade, several others and myself met at 
Louise's apartment for a game of poker last night, which 
was further enlivened by a Bohemian repast of ale and 
pretzels. I lost hand after hand, having wretched luck 
the whole evening. Just as I was meditating that neither 
charity nor Peter would see much of my fifty dollars this 
month, we started a final jack-pot. My indebtedness then 
stood sixty-five dollars. 

What seemed my first hope of fortune appeared on lift- 
ing my cards, when four straight hearts faced me; but a 
measly little club spoiled the flush. Billy Blake opened it, 
and something seemed to urge me on to try one of the big 
plays of which I'd read. I had already lost more than I 
could pay this week, and it occurred to me to make a 


56 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


desperate “ drive,” and either make myself, or come to the 
quicksand toward which I had fast been drifting — debt ! 
So I raised it five; Ned Slade raised it five again, and no 
one else came in. 

When we drew, and I picked up the one card given me, 
my heart sank down to the ground ; but my face looked as 
innocent as ever, and I even let a faint twitch of mirth 
move the corners of my mouth and reached for my chips, 
then drew my hand back as if ashamed of my readiness. 

Billy bet five, I raised, Ned raised, and around we went 
again. Billy bet the limit, Ned raised, and said “ Stay 
out, Miss Pen, you’ll not have a penny for the Sunday 
collection.” With an eager look I said, “ Can’t I bet 
more than ten ?” And when they told me no, I sighed, 
and raised them that. Billy whistled, “ The little tyro 
has us, Ned,” he exclaimed, and threw up his hand. 

Ned looked over his cards, muttered to himself, glanced 
at me. “ You were too impetuous,” he said, “ or you’d 
have pulled me for more,” and he threw three queens on 
the table face up. 

Billy turned over his cards. “ I thought these tens 
pretty good when I opened ; how big is your flush, Miss 
Gray ?” 

I laughed, and gathered the money with one hand, while 
I started to throw my cards into the discard with the 
other; but Billy seized it and displayed my miserable little 
bobtail flush. 

The pot held eighty-five dollars. 

Louise says I am progressing. 

Monday, January 30. 

We. met duly — Ned and I — for dinner at Parker’s last 
night. It is an odd club altogether! As it began in 
unique unconventionality, so it seems doomed to continue. 
Should I become an appropriately dignified person in my 
capacity of presiding officer, and veto any act of the Club 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


57 


as a whole, my ponderous Vice-president earnestly and 
emphatically assures me he constitutes two-thirds of the 
Association, and my veto is the most overruled affair ever 
snubbed by a subordinate lot! 

I have come to gradually cultivate a docility of character 
which would amaze my ancestors and cause unbelief if con- 
fided to a relative; but to quarrel with one's club members 
seems to be a stupid thing to do, and I find him very good 
when allowed his own way. 

The Adjourned Meetings usually take place at Falcons- 
height, on some evening when I expect to be alone, and 
occur about once in ten days. I fear the countersign is be- 
coming too repeated a feature of both the Stated and 
Adjourned Meetings, but there is the Club motto — “ Who 
lives without folly is not so wise as he thinks” — and is it 
Mrs. Gammell would be prudish? Hear! Hear! 

Saturday, February 14. 

Van came down to lunch to-day. 

“ Penny," he asked, suddenly, “ how are your people at 
the hospital?" My fork dropped on my plate with a clang. 

“ Oh, Van, Fd forgotten all about them! Don't you see, 
I have so much to do now; I have to go to such crowds of 
places, and to call on billions of people with Mamma — and 
oh, I just get all out of breath, and really I don't see where 
I could get a moment for them." 

“ Well, Fm not scolding you, little one. I hadn't heard 
you speak of them for some time, and I wondered how 
they fared. Do you keep up your Associated Charity 
visits ?" 

“ Ho; I don't have a moment for the poor; I give every 
second now to the rich ; they occupy me night and day." 

“ Are you giving Peter much money now?" 

Oh, ho! It is that! Suppose he should ask me what I 
do with it, I think. I am systematically losing it at pcker 


58 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIMY. 


nowadays. And then he might ask me who I played 
poker with — and oh, then , wouldn’t there be a row ! 

“ Oh, it depends,” I answer, evasively. 

“ Depends on wliat ?” he thundered. 

Heavens! I had never heard him speak so before. I 
was terrified. 

“ I don’t know,” was all I could say. 

“ What do you do with your money now?” 

“ If you give it to me, Van Buren, to exact an account 
of each penny, why have you not said so before?” I 
demanded, angrily. “ I have never been aware you wished 
me to keep an account book. I spend it on novels and 
candy and matinees and cabs and anything I have 
happened to desire. Have you some programme?” 

“ Penelope,” he interrupted, sternly, “ who is the man 
with whom you dined in a private dining-room at the 
Parker House, on the evening of January 29th?” 

“ My cousin, Ned Slade,” I said quietly. 

“ Why should your cousin take you to a private dining- 
room ?” 

“ We had private affairs to discuss.” 

“ Undoubtedly. Will you kindly mention why, in 
all these years, I have never heard of your cousin Ned 
Slade?” 

“ You have heard of him a hundred times.” 

“ I have heard of Ned Slade — yes — but not of his being 
your cousin !” 

He jumped up and came around to me. I was fright- 
ened, but I looked at him coolly. He took his pistol out of 
his pocket and turned it down to show me it was loaded. 
In that moment I thought of John Jerome — in the next of 
my mother. 

“Van!” I shrieked, and started back. 

He grabbed me by the wrist. I have the mark there now, 
he took me so roughly. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH LESTIMY. 


59 


“ Penelope,” he hissed, “ I’ll shoot yon dead if yon are 
false to me!” 

For one instant I thought I wonld kill him. Snrely, I 
thought, I will snatch that pistol and pnt every bullet in it 
in his miserable little crooked body! In that instant I 
saw how old and bent he looked, how bloated his once 
handsome face had become, his foppish dress and the silver 
snake in his cravat — every little detail of his dress im- 
pressed itself upon me. I drew myself up and faced him. 
I false! I — weak, frivolous, fast even that I was — -faith- 
less! 

“ Van Buren,” I said, in the same still tone I had years 
since used, when I told my grandfather I hoped God would 
kill my mother — “Van Buren, I pray God I may never 
see your face again !” And I turned and came in here and 
locked the door. A while ago I heard him go. Will he re- 
turn and murder me, I wonder. God forgive me, but I 
hate him with all my soul! 

February 26. 

I have neither seen nor heard from Van for eleven days. 
I am sure he cannot really think me capable of actual sin. 
It makes me reel with fury to think he could so little know 
me. God knows my life is a pretty indecent affair ! One 
night I am at a pink coat dinner, a pink of propriety and 
decorum; the next at a gambling party in some actress’ 
apartments; perhaps the night following I attend the the- 
atre with a party decorously matronized ; the next I am 
behind the scenes, having a bottle of wine “ between acts ” 
with some Harvard supes and the aforesaid actresses in 
tights ! Or I may masquerade as a Mrs. Gammell with an 
elderly monsieur whose breath is heavy with brandy, who 
fills my glass again and again with sparkling wine till it lit- 
tle matters to me whether the moon or the sun shines; in 
fact, I would find it hard to decide the difff rence! 

Ah, yes! I am a gambler, a drunkard, the mistress of a 


60 


A LlTTLU GAME WITH DESTlHY. 


man I hate — but one sin is not mine; I am not — yet — 
faithless! 

February 27. 

I saw Ned at church last evening, and told him it would 
surely he best not to dine at the Parker House to-morrow, 
since people had observed and spoken of it. So he sug- 
gested that I dine at his rooms in Mount Vernon Place, 
where no one could know of it at all; and he would have 
dinner sent in from the Somerset Club. I hesitated at 
first; but I am sure Ned knows I only go because I wish to 
avoid talk and discussion. 

It is midnight, February 27th. I come from the grave 
of “ Dispensation.” Surely, it was the prettiest of all the 
Club dinners. Ned’s pretty rooms were ablaze with light 
and flowers, the fire on the hearth crackled merrily, part of 
the dinner we cooked ourselves, first — some venison chops 
on a blazer, with plenty of sherry in the sauce, and later, a 
very good rarebit. And, as it grew late, I rose to go. 

“ Penelope,” Ned said, suddenly, “ don’t go, dear!” and 
took me tightly in his arms and kissed me. 

Oh, I feared what was coming — a woman has such swift 
intuition — my heart sank down — down! I struggled to 
free myself, but he held me tighter. 

“ Dear,” he said, with his lips close to mine, “do not go 
away from me to-night. I want you ; stay here, dear. We 
have gone so many steps together — why not all the path- 
way ?” I ceased struggling and laid very still in his arms, 
my lips had grown cold, my eyes were staring into his, hor- 
ror-stricken! It all came over me, how I had gone on — on 
— from wrong to worse, till all my degradation must show 
in my face, till my lover accused me of faithlessness, till 
men asked me to be faithless. Yes, it had come to that — 
I— I— 

When I came to myself I was lying beside an open win- 


A LITTLE GAME WITH LESTIHY. 


61 


dow, the icy air pouring over me, the contents of a cham- 
pagne bottle dashed over my face, and a glass of brandy 
being forced into my mouth. 

“ Thank God!” he said, as I opened my eyes. I closed 
them again and shuddered. I remembered everything. 

“ I want to go home,” I moaned. 

“You shall, dear,” he said. He helped me up, dried my 
dripping garments, and rang for a cab. 

“ May I drive home with you?” 

“ Oh no,” I said. “ I do not want to see you for a little 
while.” 

“Penelope,” he said, earnestly, “I want to tell you that 
I beg your pardon on my knees for so misjudging you. A 
hundred times I have known I wronged you when this 
thought has come to me that you were not pure; but, dear, 
meeting you as I did, and all our acquaintance since, and 
the many little things you do which a nice girl should 
never do, have led me into my error. I admit it was the 
stupidest error ever an ass fell into. I detest myself as 
thoroughly as you despise me. I knew I was wrong. I 
believe in you with all my soul now, but an hour ago I 
didn't!” 

* * * * * * 

And so the Dispensation is no more. 

I think of carnival. It is the first day, and all is pure 
jollity, and Rex so grand a king! And then it is the second 
day, and every one is a little more gay, a shade more reck- 
less; Folly's bells jangle more insistently, and the crowd so 
jubilantly surges where the merriest laughter rises. And 
very soon there comes the last day — the populace is sadly 
dusty, and Folly's bells are scattered, and her gown a dingy 
one; and carnival becomes another past, with not even the 
respect of a tombstone to mark its once existence. There 
is not even an epitaph or burial ground ; it goes into the 
Potter's Field! But some stray passer-by may linger to 


62 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIMY. 


scatter faded blossoms over the hurried unshapely mound; 
who knows? 

At the burial of Dispensation I strewed the rue with lav- 
ish unsteady hand, and I carried home from the grave a 
rosemary blossom! 

And when I reached home I was some other person, who 
was not my own self. I sat down to think many things. 
Miss MuloclYs “ Immutable ” came to me : 

“Autumn to winter, winter into spring; 

Spring into summer, summer into fall: 

So rolls the changing year, and so we change: 

Motion so swift we know not that we move, 

Till at the gate of some memorial hour 
We pause — look into its sepulchre to find 
The cast-off shapes that years since we called 
I, 

And start amazed. Yet on! We may not stay 
To weep and laugh. 

All which is past is past. 

E’en while we gaze the simulated form 
Drops into dust, like many centuried corpse 
At opening of a tomb.” 

I sat down to real thought of the many and varied I’s 1 
had buried, and with the Dispensation I laid away a Bohe- 
mian girl, and I wrote her an epitaph: “ Consequences, like 
curses, always come home to roost.” And then I put an 
iron-barred gate at the entrance of the graveyard, for an 
unruly ghost might rise and wander. 

And note to-morrow will come! 

******* 

Bar Harbor, 

Sunday, August 11, 1884. 

I wonder your leaves are not sere with age, you poor, 
neglected old “di’ry,” and your hinges heavy with rust. 
Two years and a half have gone by since last the little 
golden key was heard in your still bright and shining lock ; 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


63 


but to-day i have come to you, and I bid thee good- 
morning! 

As I read the last pages written here, it seems like some 
far-away dream. The little line I wrote that long-ago 
night — “ so rolls the changing year, and so we change ” — 
was indeed full of prophecy. Everything comes back to 
me now: the supper with Ned Slade, the horrible feeling 
of degradation at his proposal, the stunned then half des- 
perate feeling on my return to Rosebower, where I passed 
the night unable to sleep or to cry, longing to die, yet lack- 
ing the courage to use the little silver pistol I took from 
the secretary and laid before me — a pistol Van had given 
me and taught me to use one summer. 

I put in three cartridges and laid it on the table before 
me. “ Why cumber the earth with so foul a little atom of 
humanity?” I said. I remember uncorking a small bottle 
of Gold Seal Brandy, and that it stood empty in the morn- 
ing, drained to the last drop ! I remember that I took you, 
Madame Journal, sealed you in a package, and addressed 
you to 

Johh Jerome, Esq., 

Salisbury, Jerome, Travis & Ogden, 

. Personal. Attorneys at Law, 

Boston. 

That wrapper I have just thrown into the fire. Some- 
how I had a great desire to confess my life to him. I felt 
I wanted him to know. I felt I could not rest well in my 
grave to have him regret my death, as I felt he would, and 
believe me to have been sweet and pure when I was all else. 
I wondered that night why I felt impelled to do this — why 
I should wish him, of all men, to know my erratic life. I 
did not know then that I loved him. (I wish I did not 
know it now.) 

When the morning came I found myself lying on my an- 
gora rug by the grate, my head pillowed on my arms, and 


64 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


my disrobing bad ceased when I threw off my shoes. The 
fire had gone out, the ashes were blown about over the cold 
hearth-stone, the empty brandy-bottle stood on the table, 
the pistol and you, chere confidante, were on the secretary, 
and in his cage on the floor my little green canary, Mazep- 
pa, lay dead! 

I rose and drank a glass of champagne, put the parcel 
containing you and a few things I desired into a little bag, 
left the pistol and my little dead Mazeppa as they were, 
took one last look at Rosebower, and passed out— -forever. 

“ It is over ,” I said to myself. “The days of deceit 
and strategy, the nights of gambling and unlimited wine, 
all these — I swore to myself — all these and Van Buren 
shall belong to the past. Adieu, Mrs. Gammell; to-day 
Penelope Gray drops her role of star actress.” 

It was soon after that Grandpa Gray died. I remember 
the night so well. Although Lent, we were having an 
occasional small “dancing class” at Papanti’s. I had 
worn a pale pink silk mull frock that evening, and 
carried a huge bunch of jacqueminot roses, which arrived 
from Doyle’s just as I was leaving the house; the box con- 
tained no card. 

As I entered the hall I saw Mr. Jerome look a little dis- 
appointed as he glanced at me, then, as he looked on 
toward Mamma, who w T as carrying my flowers and fan 
for me, the little gleam of content which came over 
his countenance told me who the mysterious donor had 
been. (In my prayer-book to-day one of those roses 
serves me as a psalter mark.) And then Peter had come 
for us and said Papa had gone to Grandpa’s and we were 
to come at once. I remember Ned Slade entered the 
hall just then, and I was glad to g© ; I passed him without 
speaking. 

And a few months later dear Papa died, and was uncon- 
scious almost from the moment he was taken ill, so he 


A LITTLE GAME WITH HESTIMY. 


05 


could not tell us that for months he had been almost frantic 
with worry and trouble — as we afterwards learned — from 
the failure of a mine in which he had largely invested. But 
we soon learned that all Papa's money, and Grandpa's as 
well, had gone into that horrible yawning pit, and we five 
women had only a small pittance to subsist upon. Falcons- 
height was sold. Grandpa's house went also; Mildred 
and Marjorie were sent to a Montreal convent. Mamma 
went to live with Grandma Featherstonehaugh, and I 
remained with Grandma Gray, who has a little property 
of her own. 

Then it occurred to me that I would earn my daily bread, 
and that is why I am to-day in Bar Harbor as Special 
Correspondent of the Boston Evening Telegram , and 
wondering what strange fate has sent Van Buren 
Goddard to this same hotel and place on this all fateful 
day. 

August 12. 

As I sat at my window yesterday, who should I behold 
strolling leisurely along hut Van Buren. My thoughts 
went back — back — to the years gone by, and a strange 
feeling of tenderness for the man who was the cause of so 
many wretched hours, surprised my thought. I had so 
long thought I hated him that it amazed me to see how 
gently I felt toward him as I watched his slow progress 
down the road. He looked old and ill and careworn, and 
the impulse to follow him and say some kindly word was 
strong upon me. But I shook it off, and instead I went to 
my trunk and took you in your sealed wrapper from your 
long repose, and wrote of the changes in this fantastic life 
of mine, and as I finished I saw Van return and ascend the 
steps of the hotel. 

How I do not care for him in the least. His love — if 
ever I had any for him — is as dead as a mummy; but I 
cannot shake off that certain feeling of consideration for 

6 


66 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


him, for the man who, for so long, was my constant thought; 
for the man for whose sake I suffered such mental anc 1 
physical torture. Ah, God ! what days of agony those 
were when first I brought myself to face the reality! 
Again, when the days would come when the fate stared me 
clearly in the face, of becoming the mother of a child I 
should abhor ! How I dreaded every passing glance from 
Mamma; how I shrank from meeting Papa’s kind, loving 
eyes; how the dread of discovery and disgrace kept me 
awake lour after hour through the night, how 1 laughed 
and sang and danced when my heart was so heavy within 
me, it hurt when I moved or spoke. Then the days when 
the physical pain was added to this mental misery, and my 
brain was on fire with keeping myself well in hand, always 
controlled, ready for the thunderbolt at any second, nerved 
for whatever blow might fall! 

Ah, I cannot look back at those wretched times without 
•a shudder and a “ thank God ” that they are past. And 
yet — when Van came up to me in the parlor last night I 
welcomed him with a little feeling of pleasure at seeing 
him again, and presented him to Grandma at once. 

Why is it, I have asked myself all day — that the more we 
suffer for a man the more indelibly is he stamped on our 
tenderest memories? As I bade him good-night he spoke 
to me in a low tone : 

Penny, do you know what day this is?” 

“ God grant I might forget!” I said, bitterly. “ Grand- 
ma,” in my most cheerful tones, “Mr. Goddard is wait- 
ing to tell you ‘Good-night.’” She turned from the 
group of ladies she was chatting with, and together we went 
upstairs. 

August 13. 

Grandma and I live very pleasantly together. She is a 
dear little old lady and never opposes any whim of mine. 
Of course she disapproves strongly of my newspaper work. 


a LITTLE GAME WITH HESTIXY. 67 

“My dear,” she said, (< if you wish to be a housemaid no 
one can gainsay it; it is a clean, honest livelihood; hut this 
giving to the world the private affairs and lives of your 
friends — ” 

“ Grandma!” I interrupted, vehemently. “ I have no 
friends! When I was Penelope Gray, of Falconsheight, 
they were legion; as ’Mis’ Gummidge , of the Telegram, I am 
aware that I am friendless.” 

Once again she remonstrates. “ Dear, you are so criti- 
cised for this course that you persist in — ” 

“ Mine grandmamma,” I said, kissing her, “ Madame de 
Stael once said ‘ A man should learn to brave the opinion 
of the world, a woman to submit to it!' We are no longer 
Philistines, dear. We do not lunch upon hot-house straw- 
berries, and we have no Cosette to arrange our tresses; let 
us submit to the opinion of a world we are not of. Every 
dog has his day, and ours is past (another hairpin, dear). 
Your ducats will shelter and feed us, but you know we 
want to be clothed. Going about in our under-garments 
would be eccentric as well as immodest, and it is a neces- 
sity that we should have gowns (there ! now the comb — 
no, the prettier one) ; hence, dear Madame, do not sneer at 
the ten dollar a column I earn in quite an honest way; 
for I know no other way to do it, unless you prefer I 
should go on the stage. Do you prefer I should go on the 
stage? (Here is the hand-glass; just see if Cosette ever 
approached such a perfect coiffure!) Do you think it 
would be nicer for me to go on the stage?” 

August 15. 

I have been walking with Van. When he wrote me twice, 
after I had shaken the dust of Eosebower from my patent 
leather toes, I returned the letter unopened. When he 
sent Louise to intercede I would not listen. He had 
doubted me, and forgive him I would not! One afternoon 


68 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


i had gone m to see Louise, and Doliy Moore, a pretty little 
actress, came in. 

“ Say, girls, I had more fun with old Goddard the other 
night !” she hurst out. Louise tried to stop her, hut all to 
no avail. I was listening eagerly. “He's an old Don 
Juan from Rhode Island,” she volunteered to me, “ always 
chases everything to cover, they say! I was speaking of 
our poker game the other night, and about the royal 
straight flush Miss Gray held. He asked about her then, 
and wanted me to bring him around and introduce him 
some night when we had a game. I knew he wasn’t a man 
you’d thank me for introducing to you. Miss Gray, and I 
said, 'It’s no use, old boy, there; Ned Slade has the 
innings.’ ' How do you know?’ says he. ' Oh, they’re 
desperately sweet on each other.’ (Here Miss Moore 
winked in what I suppose she fancied a very fetching way). 

' I fancy it’s a match. They are at dinner in the Parker 
House now. I saw them going in as I came over from the 
theatre.’ ‘Let us go over and join them,’ says old God- 
dard. Well, he’d been kissing me till I was pretty weary, 
and I knew Billy was waiting at the hotel for me to have 
a bottle with him, so I said ‘Very well, come ahead,’ and 
over to Parker’s we skipped. It was about midnight then. 
‘You go and ask the head waiter where their dining-room 
is, said I. Off he goes — and I go too — the other way. 
You’d gone, of course. I knew very well you wouldn’t be 
out at that time of night, and I can imagine the blasphemy 
when the old dude came hack for me, and found all his 
cake was dough. I’ve not seen him since.” 

“ Is he a very fast man, this Mr. Goddard?” I asked, 
nonchalantly, with my heart thumping like a trip-hammer. 

“Fast!” Dolly threw hack her head and roared. 
“ They say he’s the fastest ever produced. Why, the stories 
about that man would beat any other six men’s record, if 
half true. "* 


A little game with destiny. 


69 


“ But why do you go with him?” I asked. 

“ Oh ! ” a little shrug, “ I know how to take care of myself, 
and he opens very good wine; and now and then, you 
know, we get hungry. Take it toward the end of the 
week — salary all gone, perhaps in a huff with your best 
fellow, see a real good dinner in the wings — well, you 
aren’t going to be too particular about who pays for it if 
only you’re the girl who has the eating of it !” 

When she had gone I said, “ Louise, is it true that Yan 
is such a reptile?” 

“ Penny,” she replied, “ you don’t know men, or any- 
thing about them. Goddard is no saint, hut for the matter 
of that, I never met but one man who was. I married him, 
and he died; he was too good to live, dear old Phil! And 
now I’m an actress. Penny, and a hard, callous woman. I 
lead a pretty giddy life, but through it all I keep a little 
goodness for his dear sake. I do not wholly forget him.” 

“ Why, Louise! you never told me. I had no idea you 
had been married.” 

"No; very few know it. It was out in Australia. He 
was an artist. Ah ! I cant’t talk about him. He is buried 
there. I never speak of him; I do not know why I told 
you.” And she burst into such passionate sobbing I could 
only go to her and cry too. And since that day we are 
closer friends than ever. 

August 20. 

There is one act of mine which lies very heavily upon 
my dusky conscience — my engagement to Dick Pendleton. 
That happened last summer. I liked Dick immensely 
always, and when he asked me to marry him it seemed to 
me such a chance of escape from all my past; such an op- 
portunity for beginning life all anew, to be a good, true 
woman in a totally different sphere, that I promised to be 
his wife. When men had asked me to marry them my 
“ hud year,” while I was living with Van, I gave it only a 


70 


A little game with destihy. 


passing thought. I had no idea of ever marrying; but 
now that that was all over, and dearest Papa gone, and 
everything so strange and desolate and hard, it seemed to 
me I would be happy as Dick’s wife, and that I could make 
him happy also. But no sooner was the engagement 
announced than commenced my discontent ! If he spoke 
suddenly I started. I grew very nervous. I was in con- 
stant fear that he might hear in some way, somehow, of 
Van Buren; and I pondered day and night the enormity 
of the sin of so deceiving him, until at last the marriage 
grew to be a horror to me, and I told him how it was all 
a “ mistake ;” I did not love him as I had thought. He was 
so hurt and heart-broken ! I will never forgive myself for 
causing him such suffering; yet it is better than to have 
married him! I shall never be so base as to marry any one 
now. 

I wonder why Yan stays so long here; he usually goes to 
the mountains by now. 

I wonder how late the Jeromes will stay at Beverly. 

January 1, 1885. 

Saadi tells us of a Durwaish who said in his prayer, “ 0 
God, show kindness toward the wicked, for on the good 
thou hast already bestowed kindness enough by having 
created them virtuous.” Surely if ever a maiden was 
created a purely deformed little soul, that maiden is Pene- 
lope Gray. I have ceased to struggle against Fate. Long 
years have I fought with destiny — “ fought against the 
tide, and all in vain !” Fate has conquered ; I drift with 
the waves; if turbulent, well; if placid, well; I give up the 
tight. 

I have been telling myself to-night the story of a little 
girl I knew — a headstrong, impetuous, wilful little girl, 
dashing recklessly alom- life’s pathway, but loving and 
affectionate, and seeing only the sunshine and flowers in 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


71 


the way, looking wonderingly at the clouds which floated 
in the far, far heavens, and astonished that here and there 
were shadows in the bright, laughing world. 

And one day she wandered away from the sunlight, far 
astray, into so gloomy a by-path that she never found her 
way back. 

At first, overwhelmed by her miserable plight, she 
fought Fate, beating vainly about, bewildered in the sud- 
den darkness. But with her dwelt Time; so at last she 
rose and looked Fate in the face. 

“ Who are you ?” she cried. 

“ Sin,” he replied. 

“ And Doom,” she added. But I will no longer be a 
coward. I brought you into my life — I will not shrink 
the consequences. I have heard a story of a Spartan boy 
who lived with a wolf gnawing at his vitals. Dwell with 
me; I will make no sign. 

Then came the day when one man suspected the pres- 
ence of the guest Sin, and made evident to her his thought. 
Oh, the bitter humiliation of that night! The long, 
exhausting struggle! But, when the morning came, she 
said, “Go! I have been always wrong. I have harbored 
you. Sin, since having willfully invited you, I thought no 
future could fling you and the past from my soul, forget- 
ting that each day with you added to the ever hastening 
past a sadder record. I will no longer live in evil. I will 
bend every energy from this day to be the woman my 
precious Papa believes me, and no longer risk the advent 
of a day when his heart would break with shame. 

But it was very late to resolve. In a few weeks there 
was no longer a father to look lovingly back into her be- 
seeching eyes, which ever asked the forgivenness she could 
not phrase. 

Then followed the two years which she fried to make 
happy ones to the dear, gentle grandmother, who also 


72 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


passed away at the close of these days to the impenetrable 
Hereafter. 

She was very forlorn and lonely then. Her mother 
wrote lovingly to her to come to them in the country, but 
no, she would not go. Leave her work? Oh, no; the 
broncho pony loves not the livery stable and stall. Having 
tasted freedom, could she bury herself with thread and 
needle in this pastoral hamlet? “ No,” she wrote, “ ask me 
anything else. I will visit you often; but leave me my 
own way a little longer.” 

She had her will. 

And now? Well, now she isn’t a little girl any longer, 
but a big girl, almost twenty-two, and I was wishing she 
might be sixteen again, only not a wilful, impetuous little 
girl, instead a nice, demure, obedient child, who would 
have become a good wife and mother. I think she tried 
sometimes to be nice, but she seems to have had a heart 
like the leopard, and the spots would not change. At any 
rate, as much as I liked her when she was a little lassie, I 
do not like her at all now. If 1 could help myself I should 
never speak to her, I am sure. She is quite past tolerance. 
Now she sins in pure deliberation, and knows not the 
definition of the little word regret . To-day a new year 
begins, and she has made a resolution — never to lootc lack 
again — never to regret or repent whatever the new year 
has in store. 

January 5. 

It seems quite like old times. Again I dwell at Bose- 
bower. But this time dear old Louise dwells with me. 
She has been very ill from overwork, and has given up the 
stage for a year. So we began to look about for rooms 
where we could live together, when Van presents himself 
with the Bosebower keys. I wonder why he has kept the 
place all these years. 

We have turned the smoking-den into a writing-room. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


73 


Two desks, a shelf of journalistic looking yellow paper and 
quantities of stylograph and fountain pens are features of 
this new room. Louise occupies the little chamber beyond 
the dining-room, where formerly old wine cases reposed in 
state. I, my old bedroom. In the parlor is a new article 
of furniture called a Plympton sofa-bed; and we are to 
have the flat rent free, in lieu of permitting Mr. Van 
Buren Goddard to repose upon this sofa when he has 
remained in town beyond the departure of his Up. m. train 
home. 

We are all three duly provided with latch-keys; and I 
discover that the flat is rented with a full wine-closet and 
ice-chest. 

Heigho! Ring up the curtain, my dears. Act IV! 

January 22. 

Louise is writing a novel. I have told her I will not 
share a gas-bill that builds itself from the burning of six 
gas-jets till daylight; whereupon she said she would burr, 
candles. But, considering she is just up from an illness 
called nervous prostration, I shall have to devise some 
means of putting her to bed by midnight. 

I am enjoying life hugely. It is a very nice world, anu 
I am glad I was asked in. I skurry about and write up 
weddings and receptions, and hunt balls, and “ at homes.” 
Not that I attend all these. Oh, no! I get into the gal- 
lery for the weddings, and the hoys tell me about the re- 
ceptions and halls. Once in a while some of the people / 
once Tcnew ask me to a “ tea,” but I don't go. I can hear 
all about it from some one else ; and I do not yet ab- 
solutely relish being snubbed by the possessor of the next 
cup, or the cup beyond that, at these inf or mats. 

I am tremendously beyond the pale now! Every one 
knows I am living in a flat in company with an actress, 
quite unchaperoned, and earning my livelihood as that de- 


74 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


testable anomaly, a society reporter. They never can set 
me in a horse-car (Boston horse-cars are so jammed, 4one' 
you know?), and if they meet me in a shop XTn sure I can't 
see them. These are the women. The men are different. 
Oh, the suppers I eat with their sons and brothers, and the 
news which they innocently supply to me! 

“ I say. Pen, don't you get devilish hungry up in that 
flat ?" 

“ Oh, Tom, I'm in a chronic state of starvation.” 

“ Well, let's dine together to-night — the Vic — Young’s 
- — Quincy — wherever you say.” 

I say , and go ! They tell me all about the last ball, the 
last reception, who goes to Bussigney's now, the Country 
Club Monday evening, the latest joke at the Puritan, the 
Tavern, the Somerset. I go nome, and if not too dizzy 
from the evening's libations, share the midnight gas in the 
writing-room with Louise. 

Sometimes they come around here, and we have a jolly 
evening. Louise plays on her banjo and sings “Way 
Down upon de Swanee Ribber” and “ Ole Uncle Ned,” 
and we all join in the chorus. Teddy Wan Rensselaer plays 
Schubert's Serenade on the zither, with the gas turned 
low, and some of us have a lump in our throats when he 
finishes. Our little darkey maid Judy brings in the 
blazers and some toasted crackers, and we concoct a rare- 
bit and have cold ale from the ice box as a wind-up. 

Ah, yes, it's all very merry! oh, so very merry! I am 
sure I enjoy it! 

February 17. 

Van misses the last train to Providence very frequently 
now. When the boys come over fqr an evening I take 
good care they shall go before eleven; it would be so 
embarrassing to have a gentleman with a latch-key sud 
denly appear! Very embarrassing! 

My little money-box has one hundred dollar rolls placed 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


75 


in it nowadays instead of the former fifty; and I do not 
spend it in charity either. Even when one wears nothing 
but Priestley's Henrietta one cannot be clad by pennies, 1 
find; and black Suede gloves do wear white at the finger- 
tips in such an astonishingly rapid fashion. Finally, the 
Cab Company's bill just will absorb half one's earnings. 
I can't resist those cabs! The neat little coupes with the 
trim liveried drivers — and a dollar an hour seems so trifling 
a sum; but, alas! when the bill arrives the dollars seem to 
have had such an unpleasant way of accumulating! 

March 5. 

I dined with Schuyler Amesbury last night, who is over 
from New York with the Ballard- Joneses. He left me af 
the outer door, of course, and I think never dreamed of 
the proportions of my jag! The stairs seemed intermi- 
nable. I have a very indistinct recollection of swinging 
myself up in some fashion ; but when I arrived at Rose- 
bower door there wasn't any keyhole. I sat down on the 
floor and looked it all over; not a keyhole in sight! But 
finally a bright idea occurred to me. I knew what side it 
should be on, and I commenced at the threshold with the 
key and slowly punched all the way up as far as I could 
reach. No keyhole. I decided I was too far to the right. 
I started at the foot again. This time , success ; the key- 
hole had arrived, and I screwed the key into it somehow. 

Louise had gone to bed; a dim light burned in the 
parlor; it was too high to reach, I decided, and the door- 
way seemed to fly about so queerly. I determined I really 
would not try to go to my bedroom. I threw down my 
hat, took a pine pillow from a chair-back and lay down 
upon the rug. When I awoke this morning Louise was 
staring at me in amazement. 

“ Why did you sleep there. Pen?" 

“ Don't know." 


% 


A LITTLE GAME WITH LESTIHY. 


“ Oh, why didn’t you call me? I would have undressed 
you, dear.” 

“ Guess I didn’t think about it. Oh, my head ! Make 
me a champagne cocktail, Lou, and tell Judy to fix me a 
bath. I’ve got to be at the Telegram office at ten to fix up 
some hook reviews ; blank it all !” 

Louise stood looking at me with such a dismal counte- 
nance I burst out laughing. 

“ Want to preach, dear?” I queried. “ I was only drunk! 
These little incidents will happen in the best regulated of 
families. Will you tell Judy to fix my bath? I’ll be ready 
for it in just a jiffy.” 

Off she went with such a serious countenance! Now, I 
don’t like serious countenances. Why doesn’t she be gay 
and happy, as I am f Oh, what a merry life this is ! 

* * * * * * * 

December 1. 

I don’t know what has got into Louise! She used to be 
the jolliest girl. Now she is an edition de luxe of the 
Puritan maid! She sermonizes and scolds, and is alto- 
gether no fun. She takes life so seriously. I think she 
would like me to be a nun. She locks up the wine-closet, 
and only lets me play one dollar games of poker (a dollar’s 
worth of chips and a fifteen cent limit) ! Can you figure to 
yourself anything more tame ? And now she wants me to 
give up Van! If I am out late she always waits up for me. 
Sometimes it’s great luck that she does, else my little bones 
would repose on the floor. It’s so hard some nights to get 
off one’s clothes, I’m sure I never should attempt it alone! 

I humor her because I suppose she’s going insane. They 
call it monomania. I think she’s got it. If she wants me 
to join the church I shall kick, but about the wine and the 
petty gambling and that sort of thing, I try to let her have 
her own way. I’ve heard it’s very dangerous to oppose 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIMY. 77 

them — aggravates the disease. I put twenty-five dollars in 
the Suffolk Bank to-day. I know she hasn't saved any- 
thing, and I shall have to call in a doctor soon, I fancy. 
Dear old Lou ! She's been faithful to me many years, and 
she shan't go to an asylum, no matter how had it gets! 

December 10. 

Lou gets worse and worse. She persists in going out 
with me on my newspaper work half the time now. Now, 
I don't want her. The boys don't ask me to supper when 
she's along. But I humor her; perhaps she would brood 
over her dead husband if she was alone, and it may be better 
for her to be with me. I added ten dollars to the Suffolk 
Bank account to-day. I can't let her have her way about 
Van, though; she wants me not to see him at all. Heaven 
knows I wouldn't care if he went to Kamschatka to-mor- 
row, but it would be too exerting to suggest the trip to 
him. He would get in a passion, and there might be pistols 
and — gore! and I'm sure it would be very unpleasant. 

“ Lou, dear," I said, “ you can shut yourself in your 
room when he comes if you dislike him." 

“ I don't dislike him, Penny, dear; it's not for myself I 
want him to stay away; it's because I hate so to have you 
live with him when you care nothing at all about him. 
You see I used to think you cared about him — that he was 
everything to you; now I see plainly you have never loved 
him at all. And then, Pen, I don't think he's true to 
you." (Poor girl! she's losing her mind rapidly. She 
used to tell me I didn't know men! Now she's forgetting 
all she ever knew. ) I laughed very merrily. 

“ Why, Lou, of course he's not true to me. I never 
delude myself for an instant with any such ridiculous 
fancy as that. Men never are true, you know — you've for- 
gotten. What difference does it make? I don't care a 
sou! I'm happy and contented." 


78 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


“ Do you ever ask him if he is true?” she asked. 

“ Oh, yes; he likes me to ask him. I look into his eyes 
earnestly, and say, ‘ Oh, Van, are you sure, sure you are 
always faithful to me?’ And he replies, f Always , little 
one; no one else has any attraction for me. It is easy to 
resist all allurements where there is no temptation/ And 
then he smiles very sweetly, and I appear to be perfectly 
contented and believing; but I’m thinking ‘ With what 
grace you lie!’ ” 

“Why don’t you tell him sometimes that you doubt 
him?” she asked. 

“I? I tell a man I doubt him? Why, Lou, dear, you 
told me yourself years ago never to do such an outlandish 
thing. Always pretend to believe his little story!’ you 
said. And I have always followed your very sage counsel.” 
She laughed herself then, and we went out to lunch. But 
she turned in the doorway and stopped me and took my 
face in her little white hands. 

“ Tell me, dearest,” she said, hurriedly — “ and oh, don’t 
be angry, but tell me — have you always been true to him ? ” 
I stooped and kissed her — dear old Lou ! 

“ I have never been faithless, Lou — never ! I have kissed 
some of the boys, I don’t know how many. I used to count, 
but when it got above twenty I didn’t count any more. I 
guess I was ashamed to; but that is all. I have been true 
as Van’s wife, dear.” I am sure I spoke very gently to 
her, but I was hurt: How could she think such a question 
needed reply? She did not know what she asked, probably. 
It is coming on fast ! I must try to deposit fifty dollars in 
January ! 

December 28. 

I have been up to Grandmamma Featherstonehaugh’s 
for Christmas, and did not enjoy myself. Mildred and 
Marjorie are home now from school; pretty girls, and very 
clever at embroidery. Mildred wanted to come down and 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


79 


live with me the next year. She said she was sure her em- 
broidery would pay her share of the expenses, and it was so 
dull at grandmamma’s. 

“ Was it very jolly at your convent?” I asked. 

“ Well, there were the girls and the sisters — and some of 
the priests were nice — and here there is no one.” 

It made me cross to think of her in our life at Rose- 
bower ! ( God grant she never strays !) 

“ Penny,” she urged, “do let me come. You can per- 
suade Mamma, and I’ll do everything you say and help you 
all I can; please do . ” 

The tears came into my eyes and I came near making a 
goose of myself. I have never kissed her since August 11, 
1879, but I came perilously near doing so then. I took 
her hand and drew it to my face caressingly. 

“ Mildred, darling, you don’t know what you are asking* 
It isn’t the Boston it used to be when we lived at Falcons- 
height; you wouldn’t have in the least a nice time; I 
couldn’t take you to anything but the theatres and the 
symphonies — and, dear, I am not thought a very respect- 
able person in Boston. I write for the papers and I live 
with an actress.” Then I had a wise thought : “ But I’ll 
tell you what I will do; I’ll get John Jerome to ask his 
wife to have you down for a visit next month — you and 
Marjorie both.” 

I did not sleep much that night. The next day I re- 
turned. 

“ Good-bye, Penelope,” said Grandma. “ You are look- 
ing very ill and haggard ; you’d better give up your work 
a while and come and stay with us.” 

“You are very good. Grandma; and I will be glad to 
come in June if you will have me.” 

I sent Mr. Jerome a note to-day and asked him to call. 
Yes, I am looking a little white; its the black gown, per- 
haps. I’ll try a little of Lou’s rouge. 


80 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINT. 


January 15, 1886. 

Mrs. J erome has been very kind, and asked the girls down 
for two weeks. They came yesterday, and were so happy 
and delighted when I saw them at dinner last evening. 
Of course she will have to ask me to her reception and teas 
during their stay, but I shall relieve her of all embarrass- 
ment by being too busy to go, and see the girls in the morn- 
ings when I am at leisure. I think people will treat them 
nicely, both for Papa’s and Grandma’s sake, and as guests 
of Mrs. Jerome; for surely they are blameless for our 
poverty, and having been always at school until now, 
have not committed the fiascos of their elder and Bohe- 
mian sister ! 

Life is as usual on the Avenue. Louise is a little dull, 
but I am very jolly ! 

January 1, 1887. 

Another new year. Mon Dieu, how slowly they go ! 
Oh, yes, gay years, to be sure; but then, even these — 

T believe I am not very well. I tire so easily now. I have 
been thinking of going home to Mamma and Grandma for 
a little rest; but that would be very weak and stupid, to 
give up for a little feeling of languor. They are all alone 
now — Mamma and Grandma — Grandpa is dead, and Mil- 
dred and Marjorie blissfully happy in their new homes. 
They married such splendid fellows, and everything seems 
to point to such a hajipy future for them. Mildred, as Mrs. 
Dan Livingstone, will have all the New York society she 
desires, and Marjorie, who married Hugh Bidgeley, has a 
beautiful home in Baltimore. 

“ Do give up that old journalism, Penny,” Mildred wrote, 
“ and come and spend the winter with me. Dan wants you, 
and I want you, and you shall have the prettiest room in 
the house, f a symphony in pink,’ and we’ll be very nice to 
you, indeed.” 

But I shake my head. I am glad they are happy, but I 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


81 


am outside their realm. I feel I would be a sombre spot 
in such a home. I have made my bed ! I will lie on it ! 

February 11. 

Grandma writes me poor Mamma is getting very frail. 
I ought to go to her, I fear. She has grieved for my father 
till she seems a mere shadow of her former gay self, and 
was looking very ill at Christmas. But I feel so tied to 
my work. There is a weekly letter to get to New York, 
the book reviews for the San Antonio Rattler , the syndi- 
cate letter for the Western and Southern papers, and my 
daily work here for the Telegram. It keeps me tremen- 
dously busy. Every morning now I find myself so tired; 
it takes me a long time to dress, and a cocktail before I be- 
gin. But I find it helps me wonderfully toward night to 
put a little cocaine in my sherry, and when I write at the 
office late I prepare some in a bottle, and if I find my pen 
is dragging, I take a little sip, and then I am nerved for 
any amount of work — -for another hour. 

Then, I take another little sip ! 

March 1. 

I told Van to-day I no longer wish him to give me money. 
I am earning more than I spend now, and my Suffolk Bank 
account is assuming very creditable proportions. He said 
I could spend it on charity again; but I told him I had 
enough also for charity, and quite firmly declined to have 
another cent. He was a little angry, but allowed me my 
way, only saying: 

« When you change your mind you can let me know; I 
will put this away somewhere for you.” 

He has invited General Poynter down for a few games of 
baccarat Sunday evening. 

March 3. 

John Jerome called on me last evening. He said he was 
thinking of me, and feared I must be lonely now Louise 

6 


82 


A LITTLE GAME WITH LESTINY. 


has gone. Louise has gone hack to the stage, and is now 
traveling west. I miss her unspeakably. 

“ Are you quite well?” he asked, with that odd, penetrat- 
ing glance of his. 

“John,” I said (I have called him John for a year 
now), “ I want to see how it sounds to tell the truth. So 
many people have asked me that lately, and I have said 
“Oh, very well; I always look pale in the spring. But 
really ” — and the smile was not a great success, I fear — 
“ I am just as sich as I can be!” He tried very hard to 
persuade me to go home; but I told him I meant to fight 
it off. 

Go home! Go away from Boston? Go where I will 
never see him ? Never ! 

I am strong enough! There is plenty of cocaine and 
whiskey and coffee in the world; and due proportion of 
these well administered will keep me about a long time. 
But oh, I am very tired! 

To-night I think of you, Mamma. I think of you and 
love you. Do you love me? I forget the unhappy hours 
in my childhood when you were angry and severe with me ; 
when you forgot I was only a little girl with a little girl’s 
reasoning. I remember the time when I was ill with 
scarlet fever, and once in a while I woke through the 
night, and I always found you there, Mamma. You sat in 
the big chair by my bed all the night through, and when I 
woke you held my hand or kissed my forehead, and once I 
woke and you were crying. I remember the doctor and 
Papa were there, and when I spoke you came to me and 
kissed me all over my face, though the doctor said you 
mustn’t kiss my mouth. It was just a little face then. 
And to-night I think, if you would come and kiss my face 
again, perhaps the pain in my head might cease a little 
while. 

I am so tired , Mamma! 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


83 


March 10. 

I think I am not quite so gay as I was! I try to be very 
blithe and merry, but I find myself stopping now and then 
in the middle of a laugh — which is not the place to stop at 
all. I find myself so nervous lately, I fear my doomsday is 
en route! Well, when I have to bury my nose in the wall 
I will try not to kick. I know compensation is always 
demanded of us, and I’ve a good deal to compensate. So 
HI not howl or whimper when the wind veers — only an 
intolerable ingrate would ! 

March 21. 

John was here last night. I sometimes wonder if he 
knows I care for him. Of course he could not dream how 
much I care! How a little glimpse of him in the street 
makes the whole day happy to me; how his presence in a 
room, though a dozen others be there, is a supreme joy; 
ho^y the echo of his footstep makes my pulse leap and the 
color fly into my face! He is always very gentle to me, 
and, I think— -fatherly; he seems to think more about 
whether I have my rubbers on, or am warmly wrapped, 
than if I have on a pretty dress or a becoming chapeau. 
And he never tells me — as other men do — about my eyes or 
my “ roseleaf skin,” or that I do my hair gracefully. 

He stayed quite late last night. I was sitting on a has- 
sock by the fire when he had gone, still thinking of him. 
The door opened and Van came in. A little shudder of 
repulsion ran over me. I hoped he would not kiss me, yet 
I knew he would. I felt I could not endure he should 
touch me. 

He came up to the fire, bringing a chill atmosphere from 
the outer cold with him, and stooped down to me. I 
pushed him back a little and placed* my hand over my 
mouth. 

“Don't, Van; I have a frightful sore throat. You had 
better not kiss me.” 


84 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


“ Well, I will kiss your cheek, then,” he declared, com- 
placently. Even that caress was difficult to endure. 

I kept on studying the leaping flames, the smouldering 
logs. Van lit a cigar and smoked it; took out the brandy 
bottle, filled a glass, drank it. Still I did not stir. 

“ Suppose we don’t sit up for breakfast,” he suggested. 

I roused myself — rose — and started for my room. 

“Van, won’t you sleep here to-night? I am feeling 
wretchedly ill. I want the whole room.” 

“ If you are ill, you will want me near you,” he said. 

“ I am very nervous,” I continued. " I shall pitch and 
toss about and keep you awake.” 

“Well, if I don’t complain, you ought to be able to 
stand it.” I was angry then. 

“ I wish to sleep alone,” I said, quietly. 

“ Now look here. Penny, let’s have no nonsense. I don’t 
wish to sleep alone. That isn’t what I come here for.” 
And then came the row. 

“ Van Buren,” I said, “ for years I have obeyed you, con- 
sidered you; to-night I intend to consider myself. I shall 
sleep alone!” 

“ If you sleep alone to-night you may continue to do 
so. I shall leave the house at once, and not enter it again 
until you have removed your effects.” 

He was white with fury and brought his fist down heavily 
on the table as he spoke. The brandy bottle fell over and 
rolled to the floor with a crash. I passed into my room and 
locked the door. 

And so my trunks are packed, and I await a cab to take 
me to Parker’s, where I will abide while I look up rooms. 
Somehow I feel quite bright and happy this morning — 
something, I fancy, as Christian did when his pack came off 
and rolled down the hill. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


85 


999 St. Botolph Street, 
April 2. 

I am settled at last in my new habitation. It takes so 
many more days than you think it is going to to get all 
one’s belongings in due order. It is a very tiny abode; a 
little parlor where I sleep on a “ Plympton,” a dressing- 
room and bath, then a small room where Judy reposes 
across the hall a kitchen and dining-room, and that is all, 
and quite the tiniest rooms I ever beheld. 

“ Bunty ” Morse — John’s cousin — called on me yester- 
day. He said he only ran in “ for a moment,” but he 
stayed an hour. 

We were speaking of John. 

“ Is he much in love with his wife?” I asked. “You 
know he never seems to be, somehow.” 

“ Jack in love with Mary! Oh, Lord, no ! You see he 
was at the University in Heidelberg and she was studying 
music, staying at the same pension where his aunt stopped. 
She and his aunt were great friends, and he saw a good deal 
of her — of Mary. She is older than he. Somehow he 
made love to her, and she took to it very sweetly, and the 
first he knew they were engaged. He hadn’t meant to go 
as far as that, but he saw he was in for it, and then they 
were married.” 

“ She is a charming woman,” observed I. 

“ Charming,” he reiterated. “ A favorite in society, 
intellectual, brilliant, a capital hostess, and a devoted 
mother to Natalie — but, Penny, she’s no success as a 
wife !” 

“ Why, how , Bunty?” I asked, astonished. 

“Well, I don’t know if I can explain it. For one thing 
she has no conception of order. She can sit down in 
the most untidy room you ever saw, and complacently read 
or converse, and never have the first idea anything is awry. 
Such things irritate and estrange a fellow. J ack is a man 


86 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIMY. 


with a man’s impatience, and sometimes speaks quickly ; 
then she either flies into a passion or commences to cry. 
If she had the tact to say : 

“‘lam, careless. Jack/ or ‘It was thoughtless of me, 
dear, and I’ll try to have it better next time,’ things would 
all be smoothed oyer in no time, for Jack’s the best fellow 
in the world. But no man enjoys seeing his house a pig- 
sty; and when he doesn’t love his wife in the first place, 
slatternly ways do not endear her to him.” 

“ She does a great deal for charity,” I said. 

“ Indeed she does ; she is very generous. As I said, she 
is a delightful woman, a true friend; but she has not 
learned to be a wife. Her husband is a complete enigma 
to her, and she tells me so. She would take off her jewels, 
sell them and give him the money, if he asked her, unhesi- 
tatingly ; but to see that the inkstand on his library table 
is filled, or his frayed shirts put in the rag-bag, never 
occurs to her. It is these little things a man wants. It is 
the little thoughts for one’s comfort which makes a man 
worship a woman.” 

“ But has a society woman time for these little details ?” 
I argued. 

“ She should take time! A woman’s husband should be 
as important to her as society. Mary would do anything 
Jack asked her, I am sure; but a fellow doesn’t want to be 
always asking . He wants his wife to know his wishes and 
anticipate them. I ought not to say a word against the 
girl ; she was awfully good to me once when I was laid up 
ill there; she would rub my head till I wondered her arm 
didn’t drop off; but I remember a chair-scarf got knocked 
onto the floor one day, and I think she walked over that 
thing fifty times without its occurring to her to pick it up. 
I was ugly as the devil then — a fellow’s apt to be when he’s 
sick — and at last I burst out, * Good God ! Mary ; if you 
don’t pick up that darned cloth you’ve walked over for the 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


87 


last hour, I'll get up and tie a hangman's knot round your 
throat with it !" 

“ What did she say ?" 

“ She went away and left me." 

“Without picking it up ?" 

“ Yes !" 

I just shrieked. 

“ What did you do about it ?" I asked. 

“ Oh, Jack came in soon, and picked it up the second he 
entered. ‘ Jack/ said I, ‘ if Mary were my wife I'd be in 
the insane asylum, or the divorce court inside of a month!' 
Well, I must go. Be a good girl, Penny, and don't mope 
here too much. I'll come and take you to drive ; you look 
like a little ghost. Bye-bye." 

April 5. 

I am very tired. I almost fear I must give up. Oh, I 
have tried so hard to fight off this dreadful illness creeping 
over me; why cannot I succeed? I — it is growing dark 
very early — perhaps lam growing faint — I — surely — 

♦ * * % Hs sH H* 

October 31. 

Boston and work once again. I have been so very ill for 
so many long dreary months! For weeks I had tried to 
keep about when I should have been in bed, and one day as 
I sat down to confide in you, I reached the end of my en- 
durance, and Judy found me lying unconscious on the 
floor. She closed you, dear confidante , and the spring 
lock held fast together — thank God! — the tale of these 
many years. 

Mamma was wired for, and came at once. I was 
delirious many weeks with brain fever; then too weak to 
be removed for weeks after, and poor Mamma was kept 
here at my bedside for three long months before they were 
able to take me to Grandma's. I shall always fear it was 


88 


A LITTLE GAME WITH LESTIHY. 


the long strain which made Mamma ill as soon as I was 
able to sit np. 

Dear Mamma! She was so quiet and gentle in those 
last days; so patient if things went wrong. She never 
wanted me to leave her, and used to look at me so wist- 
fully sometimes. I wonder what I told her in my ravings. 

One day she drew me close to her. 

“ Penelope, if I have not been a good mother to you, if 
I have made mistakes, if I neglected you, darling, have 
you forgiven me ?” 

The tears streamed down my face and blinded me. I 
tried to answer, but I could not. There was no need. She 
had gone! 

November 8. 

The afternoon has been a happier one than any in 
many weeks, for Jack came to see me; and now I know he 
cares for me. 

No, he did not tell me so, except in his voice, in his eyes, 
in the touch of his hand. I wonder has he cared long — as 
long as I. I wonder if I ought to go somewhere else to 
live; somewhere where he may never see me ; somewhere 
where our lives may drift apart — away — Ah, but I can- 
not! Surely if we but love each other silently, there is no 
wrong; if I but see him now and then when it brings such 
gladness into my life — indeed it cannot be any wrong to 
her! It is no disloyalty to her for him to sit beside me an 
hour or two hours — or perhaps three in a week; oh, surely 
I may stay. 

Every one is gone now. I am all alone ! Papa, Mamma, 
Grandpa and Grandma Gray, all in the little lot at Mount 
Auburn. Grandpa Eeatherstonehaugh lies in the grave- 
yard at Beechwood. Grandma has gone to her sister's 
home in Virginia. My sisters are married and wrapped up 
in their homes. 

I feel so alone in this great wide world. When Jack 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIKY. 


comes the world grows narrower — it narrows to a little 
room — it narrows to two chairs — sometimes to a sofa! — it 
narrows to us two — to Jack and me! 

December 2. 

It is drawing near Christmas, and the streets are crowded 
with the bustling, eager throng. A good deal is going on, 
and I find my newspaper letters easy to fill. I have back 
most of my old papers, yet some have new correspondents. 
However, I have plenty to do. I am living very quietly in 
a few rooms and see hut few callers. Judy is married, and 
her cousin attends to my simple wants. The cousin's name 
is “ Pinky," and she is a very dusky-hued little darkey, 
somewhat unadapted to her unique sobriquet ! But Pinky 
and I get along well together, and she has seven “even- 
ings out " if she wants them. 

As I look hack (how many years have I spent looking 
hack) it all seems to me some hideous dream. I cannot 
fancy I was that Penny Gammell of yore. I do not feel 
as though I had ever been a person whose sole and monop- 
olizing aim in life was how much I could win at poker 
and how much brandy I could drink in a night. Was it 
I ? Am I the desperate woman who sat half a night with 
a loaded pistol by her hand? Was I — oh, God! was I — the 
mistress of Van Buren Goddard? Was I not mad , a verita- 
ble lunatic? Couldn't I have been at least a little out of 
my mind? Oh, did I do all those things and know it? 
Dear God! could I creep to the edge of the world and drop 
whole years over — down — into the chaos without? I want 
to flee away from them, anywhere, only — away ! I want to 
think I did not live then, that they are only some hideous 
nightmare ! 

And it is useless. Relentlessly they confront me, those 
years of bitter, humiliating reality. 

Bah ! I, who never used to know regret ! Where is my 
pride? 


90 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


It is all over and past; what good will weeping do? Do 
yon not remember, “ of all fruitless things, sending a tear 
to look after a day that is gone is the most fruitless?” 

“ Don't be a clam,” Penny, as Bunty would say; fly the 
masts, full-rig the ship; ahoy there! let her sail! 

December 31. 

It is cold to-day; the fireplace is piled high, but one can- 
not keep warm. 

All the morning I have been diligently writing. No, 
not newspaper work, but a long, long letter to Jack. In a 
few days I am going away. I do not quite know where, 
perhaps ’Frisco, perhaps only New York; but I find I will 
have to go. 

Jack came last night. It was such a happy evening. 
We talked of everything, and hardly noticed time fly, till 
nddenly the clock struck midnight, and Jack rose at 
once. 

“I beg your pardon, Pen; I’d no idea it was so late. 
You see when one is with you — ” 

Suddenly, as though the impulse were more than he 
could resist, he came closer to me. “ Dearest ,” he cried, 
“ won’t you let me tell you I love you ? have always loved 
you; loved you from that first moment, long ago, when 
you came into the parlor at your grandfather’s with your 
quaint little pearl silk frock on, with your great blue eyes 
all aglow with excitement from some little adventure you 
had just enjoyed, and proceeded to relate to us all — ” He 
was crushing me tighter and tighter in his arms; how 
could I resist, cherie , when I felt the world would fade 
away when he should take them down and go from me? 

And then I knew he had kissed me — and had gone! 

Yes, of course I must go! I see it all now. We could 
not resist telling each other how dear the other was. 
I must go away — way off somewhere. And so I have written 


A LITTLE GAME WITH OESTIHY. 


91 


him good-bye and all the story of my life. I cannot keep 
his love when I know he would abhor me did he know me 
as I am. I have written it faithfully — all — and now I am 
going down to his office and give it into his hands myself. 
Just once more I must see him. Just once more look into 
his dear eyes while he loves me — believes in me — knows 
nothing of the black years gone. Once more I will touch 
his hand, speak with him; then I will go out again into 
some new life ! 

It is the last day of the year, ma confidante , and the last 
leaf of this faithful little volume. Adieu ! Keep faithfully 
my many confidences. I shall seal you now in a crimson 
wrapping, and throw into the flames the little golden key! 

[EHD OF PART FIRST.] 




PART 


IL 


PART II. 


** A . moment’s grace, Pygmalion I Let mo be 
A breath’s space longer on this hither hand 
Of fate too sweet, too sad, too mad to meet. 

Whether to be thy statue or thy bride — * 

An instant spare me! 

Terrible the choice, as no man knoweth, being only man 
Nor any, saving her who hath been stone, 

And loved her sculptor. 

Shall I dare exchange 

Veins of the quarry for the throbbing pulse? 

Insensate calm for a sure-aching heart? 

Repose eternal for a woman’s lot? 

Forego God’s quiet for the love of man? 

To float on his uncertain tenderness, 

A wave tossed up the shore of his desire 
To ebb and flow whene’er it pleaseth him? 

Remembered at his leisure, and forgot, 

Worshiped and worried, clasped and dropped at mood, 
Or soothed or gashed at mercy of his will — 

Now Paradise my portion and now hell — 

And every single, several nerve that beats 
In soul or body, like some rare vase, thrust 
In fire at first, and then in frost, until 
The fine protesting fibre snaps? 

Oh, who. 

Foreknowing, ever chose a fate like this? 

What woman out of all the breathing world 
Would be a woman, could her heart select? 

Or love her lover, could her life prevent? 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


95 


Then let me be that only, only one; 

Then let me make that sacrifice supreme 
No other ever made, or can, or shall. 

Behold ! the future shall stand still to ask 
What man was worth a price so isolate, 

And rate thee at thy value for all time, 

For I am driven by an awful law. 

See! While I hesitate it mouldeth me. 

And carves me like a chisel at my heart. 

’Tis stronger than the woman or the man; 

'Tis greater than all torment or delight; 

'Tis mightier than the marble or the flesh; 
Obedient be the sculptor and the stone ! 
i'hine am I; thine at all the cost of all 
The pangs that woman ever bore for man; 
Thine I elect to be, defying them ; 

Thine, thine I dare to be in scorn of them — 
And, being thine, forever bless I them. 

Pygmalion l Take me from my pedestal. 

And set me lower, lower, love, that I 
May be a woman, and look up to thee; 

And looking, longing, loving, give and take 
The human kisses worth the worst that 
Thou, by thine own nature, shalt inflict on me. 


PART K. 


(Mr. Robert Duncan Jerome to Mr. John Jerome.) 

Comet Club, New York, 
December 1, 1887. 

Dear Jack : Your check just at hand, and I at once 
rush to ink to bestow upon you my gratitude. I really 
could have got along on less, but I won't bother to return 
the change! 

Next month I have enough shekels coming in to buy my 
own Nestors, and possibly put me into some new garb. 
Mrs. Thayer's head is almost completed, and Mrs. Liyzee 
Carroll is to sit to me soon for a miniature, which I am 
hoping to make an eminent success. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


97 


I am keeping an account of my indebtedness to you, and 
it foots up to just $12,047. 

My assets cannot to-day make a fair balance! 

You're one of God's own noblemen, Johnny, and if there 
ever is anything on this terrestrial globe that I can do in 
your service, you won't find a readier man alive than this 
scapegrace brother of yours, dear old man. 

For twenty-seven years you have shouldered all my pec- 
cadilloes (is the word inadequate?) and braced me up many 
a day when I should have gone clean to the devil but for 
your good grip ; and I am always hoping the day will come 
when at least I may show you that I'll be glad to put my- 
self out to ao you a good turn. 

I'm off to Philadelphia this afternoon for the assembly; 
Aunt Elizabeth is patroness, you know, and I promised to 
run up, Awful bore! Kegards to Mary. 

Faithfully, Bob. 

December 31, 1887. 

Penelope : 

I have read it. Bead it? I have read it until every word 
is seared into my memory. 

Oh, my little sweetheart! To know how you have suf- 
fered — and all these years, when I might have helped you; 
when, perhaps, I might have saved you — I blindly, stu- 
pidly saw nothing! Of course I saw nothing, worshiping 
you as I did; if anything looked strange, or wrong, or out 
of place, I would not give it thought. To suspect you ! 
I should as soon have suspected my wife! You ! with your 
great blue innocent eyes, and dainty little ways and high- 
bred manners — suspect you of anything so hideous as this 
horrible history you tell me! 

When you gave me the letter I knew it all! It all 
flashed through my mind when you stood there with the 
whole story in your eyes, and told me, “ I cannot have your 


98 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


respect, Jack. The story is there — and — Good-niglit 
I can hear your sweet little voice in its saddened cadence 
yet. And I let you go ! What a brute I was not to make 
you stay till I had read it and could comfort you ! And 
yet, it may be, it was better to read it alone; for I 
suffered , dear. It was best you should not see how terri- 
ble the letter was to me! 

Am I cruel? I do not mean to be; forgive me; one is 
not himself, quite, after so sad a shock. 

It is almost midnight! Seven hours ago you went away, 
dear, and I am yet at my desk, with your pages spread 
before me. 

The pain, the anguish, the reality, make me reel! The 
wound is deep! The shaft rankles in it! 

Can I help you? Can I serve you? Command me, dear- 
est. If I could only see you! Why didn't you make it 
possible? May I come to you to-morrow, the first day of 
the new year? I am calmer now. Philosophy has done 
something. Reason, in the light of what little common 
sense I have, has helped me. The skeleton shakes and 
rattles. Let it! It is mine now — in company with sev- 
eral others! Forgive this jargon! Do I frighten you? I 
am not myself. 

Soon the bells will toll the entrance of a new year into 
our lives. May it bring us both blessings and a happier 
year than ever before since those years were begun. 

I am with you. My friendship you long ago won; it is 
yours— /or all time . John Jerome. 

Marlborough Club, Sunday, Jan. 1 , '88. 

Your note is just handed me. Do you mean to leave 
Boston to-morrow, permanently? Do not make any de- 
cision until I have seen you. I will call at five. If you 
are not in I shall wait for you. 

Hurriedly, J. J, 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


99 


Sunday, January 1, Noon. 

i>ear Jack : 

Your little penciled scrawl by messenger, I have suc- 
ceeded in translating after due difficulty. I hasten to 
write you that I cannot possibly see you to-day. I leave 
by Shore line at one to-morrow, and if 3 mu care to come 
down to the train you will find me there ten minutes 
before starting. Penelope. 

P. S. — Oh, Jack; don't make it harder for me. Help me 
go; don’t try to hold me back! Pen. 

John Jerome, Esq., Marlborough Club. 

The Albemarle, New York, January 3. 

Jack dear, you will forgive me, won't you? When I 
wrote you I would leave at one o'clock, I really meant to! 
Then I read over again your letter of New Year's Eve — and 
— and I didn't dare trust myself to see you — it seemed as if 
I never could get on the train, and go from you, if you 
should ask me not! So, despising myself for my weakness, 
I came over at eleven, and wired you from from Worcester 
that I had gone. I hope it reached you in time to pre- 
vent your bothering to go to the station. 

I have made no plans yet. The Telegram has given me 
a two weeks' vacation. (Again my cowardice! I thought 
it would be easier to write my resignation.) 

I may stay just here in New York; but I think now I 
will run up into the country to-morrow, where I have two 
funny little great-aunts, whom I have not seen since I was 
a child. 

They live on a farm in a little village, five miles from 
any railroad. Once a day a queer old stage rumbles in 
with the mail, which is distributed in the village store. 
Papa took me there once when I was a little girl, and 1 re- 
member we had delicious broiled chicken, and cream as 
thick as charlotte russe. I think, now, I would like to go 


100 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


there again — if they will have me. It is a beantiful place 
to bury a heartache! Jack, dear, you mustn’t suffer so for 
me! I’m not worth a pang! I am sorry I came into your 
life, dear, but it has been such a little way, you can thrusl 
me out again — and forget. 

Don’t write me. First, because I would not receive it, 
as I leave here to-morrow; and again, because every word 
of tenderness from you makes it harder for me to do 
right . Good-bye. Penelope. 

Boston, Marlborough Club, 
Sunday, Jan. 8, ’88. 

Some little girls are little geese. My sweetheart is a 
whole flock of geese, I think. 

Did you think you could run away from me, dear, and 
bury yourself in some remote niche of the universe, and 
that I would never lift a finger to find you? And were 
you really thinking me such a conglomeration of stupidity 
that I would not know whom to ask for your address? 
Whatever you thought, I intend you to understand to- 
morrow, when that daily stage of which you told me 
rumbles into Arbutusville, that I am not half the chump I 
look. 

Dearest, won’t you please come home ? 

I know you hate it in that lonesome little village (I feel 
convinced it is lonesome), and Boston is a very dull town 
with those shades so rigidly drawn at 999 St. Botolph 
street. I know, because I walked by there not half an 
hour ago, and it is not pleasant to walk by. 

Now, look here, dear, you truly must come back! If 
one of us must go, I will. You are throwing over 
your journalistic prospects and ambitions, and I cannot 
allow it. 

You will make me very wretched if I think that my love 
for you, which is the truest, deepest, purest passion of my 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


101 


life, can be only cruel in its outcome. Come home, sweet- 
heart, and I will not come near you, if you say you prefer 
it so. To drive you away from your home, your friends, 
your profession, I cannot stand; and I assure you, upon 
my honor, that I shall close my desk, leave my clients to 
go to the demnition bow-wows, and my cases to be non- 
suited and thrown out of court while I embark for Pata- 
gonia, if you are not back in Boston in three days! 

Your humble servant , 

Joh:n\ Jerome. 

Arbutusville, N. Y., 
January 11. 

Johnny Jerome, how dared you telegraph Louise Mon- 
tague for my address? Don’t attempt to deny it, for she 
was the only person who knew I was here. And then to 
threaten me! I did not think you were such a bully! 
Either you run down to the next express train for Athens 
or I — Don't you know a woman never does what she's 
told to do ? Specially when she's free, and white, and 
twenty-four? So, do not think that any movements of 
mine will interfere with your voyage to Patagonia, or 
Greenland's icy mountains, or India's coral strands. 

Home! Where may that be? My home is anywhere. 
For the present, here. 

All that kept me in Boston, J ack dear, was The Tele - 
gram , and yesterday I wrote them my resignation. I want 
to rest — and cry ! That is a little indulgence one cannot 
permit one's self in Boston; there are people there; and it 
is unbecoming to the nose. 

I will tell you about Arbutusville. It is very novel. A 
picturesque village with beautiful drives, glorious scenery, 
and pure, bracing air, but, mon Dieu, so desolate ! I am 
sure that a more “ God-forsaken, devil-deserted country" 
was never peopled than this stagnant little hamlet. 


102 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


I am abiding in the large “ front room ” of a big white 
farm-house. My waking eyes behold a mammoth colored 
picture, named, in lurid print, “The Court of Death!” 
Above the head-board of my bed hangs “ The Bishops of 
the Methodist Church.” Over the mantel a group, which, 
one is told, are the Presidents of the United States, and on 
the mantel, in a round black frame, “ President Lincoln 
and his Family.” On a bracket, at one side, is a photo- 
graph of “ Grandma Garfield,” at the other end, “ Nellie 
Grant.” 

Should not one grow patriotic? 

But I do not look always at the pictures. There are 
books : “ Baxter's Saint's Rest,” “ Essays of Elia,” “ The 
Christian Endeavor” — a whole shelf full — also “Poole's 
Sketch Book” and “Hallam's Middle Ages.” Then, as I 
look from my window, I have the village graveyard ! 

My associates, my two great-aunts, are one ninety-two, 
the other but ninety. In the night they have nightmare, 
and yell! Last night I was wakened by a fiendish shriek. 
At first I could not determine whether to snuggle myself 
underneath the feather-bed, or to bravely go to the rescue. 
I tried to strike a match, but it would not light; soon I dis- 
covered my non-success was due to my trying to light it on 
a tumbler! I speedily substituted the wall. Then I urged 
my quaking limbs to the door, confidently expecting some 
monster tramp was awaiting me. 

I reached my great-aunt and shook her. 

“Ah!” she said, calmly, “I dreamed I was a hogshead!” 

“ But that was not so bad,” I replied. 

“ No, but they were trying to stuff me through a window- 
pane!” 

I have beseeched her to go supperless to bed to-night. 

What a long letter I have written you ! It is the pen ! 
They sell very garrulous pens at country stores. 

Oh, Jack, I was glad to get your letter. I have read it 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


103 


a thousand times; and it is a comfort to talk to you a little 
while. You won’t do anything so foolish as to leave Bos- 
ton? 

Jack, I haven’t mailed my letter yet to The Telegram. 
If I should come home, would you promise never to come 
to see me? Pehelope. 

Bostoh, January 13, 1888. 

My Precious'Little Girl, — I was made very happy this 
morning by your charming letter. It was like you, dear, 
to write me a lot of nonsense, and try to persuade me that 
you found it entertaining in that dismal wilderness; but I 
shuddered to think of you out there, surrounded by grim 
antiquities, tombstones, and photographs of the deceased ! 

I can very vividly picture that cheerless room. I can even 
see things you did not tell me. You did not mention the 
wreath of immortelles on the wall, in memoriam of some 
departed ancestor, nor the wax fruit in a glass case on the 
table, the little motto worked in red worsted on perforated 
card-board, the tiny stove (with a tendency to smoke), in 
which you burn small sticks of wood, nor the big black 
horsehair rocking-chair; but they are all there, are they 
not? And one of your great-aunts asks you how much a 
yard you paid for the dress you have on, and looks dread- 
fully shocked when you tell her ; and the other has asked 
you if your teeth are false, and if you regularly attend 
church on Sundays! How am I in the role of clairvoyant, 
dearest? 

Penelope, darling, let us look at things seriously. I love 
you! You are the sweetest woman I ever knew, or expect 
to know (or want to know) ! It does not make my love 
lessen that you stay away from me. Nothing that can ever 
happen can kill my love for you — it is too deep-rooted and 
whole-hearted a feeling to be easily stifled. Loving you as 
I do and never to see you is to be very miserable. It dis- 


104 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


quiets me, unfits me for business; I cannot think of cases 
and clients when every thought turns in longing to you, 
dear. 

I have put out of my mind the past! When you were a 
mere baby a despicable cur took advantage of your trust in 
him. To me you are everything that is pure and lovely, 
and if to-day I were free to ask you to be my wife, and the 
mother of my dear little daughters, I would hesitate not 
one moment. As it is, I ask myself over and over again, 

“ Why couldn't I have known you eight years ago? for we 
would have loved each other, dearest!" I must have loved 
you, and a love so intense as mine you could not have re- 
sisted! 

I ask you to come home, Penelope, and to let me come 
sometimes to see you. I will come no oftener than you 
wish — I will ask nothing. In no way will I attempt to 
fetter you, dear. Your goings and comings, your friend- 
ships and your festivities I will in no manner intrude upon. 

I only ask you that I may sometimes come and sit beside 
you, and hold your dear little hands close in my own, and 
talk with you for an hour, and then I can go out into the 
world again strengthened and calmed. 

But if you deny this, at least let me feel that you are 
here, where I know you would be cared for if ill again, and 
have friends about you. You are not yet strong, dear little 
girl, and not to know where you were, how you were, nor 
what your situation, would make every moment wretched 
and miserable. 

Will you come ? 

Good-night, and God guard you, dear. 

I am faithfully yours, John. 

999 St. Botolph Street, January 16, 1888. • 

Dear : 

I have come. 


Penelope. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


1U5 


J anuary 20. 

Just a little line before I go home, dear, to greet you 
on your breakfast tray in the morning. I wonder if I 
have half told you how happy you have made me in coming 
back, as I begged you ! I was distracted when I found you 
had really gone, and Boston was one vast wilderness all 
those dreadful two weeks ! Now I feel the nearness of your 
presence; I know that when I wish I can cast everything 
aside and a few moments will bring me to you, and I have 
only to look deep into your eyes, my precious one, to feel 
contented with all the world, and the happiest man therein! 
How I warship you ! 

Devotedly, John. 

January 22. 

Sweetheart : 

You were so pretty to-day ! That scarlet silk jacket was 
charming on you. You have the dearest little face! I won- 
der if any other girl in the world has violet eyes like yours. 
Do you know I carry them about with me always ? Black- 
stone, or Kent, or a brief I am writing — it makes no matter 
— they are right there on the page before me the livelong 
day! I thought I could not grow fonder of you, darling, 
but every time I am with you there is some new side, some 
new beauty of your character breaks upon me, and I am 
bound more firmly by those unseen fetters that are fast 
shackling our lives into one — one in interest, one in pur- 
pose. Penelope, I shall try so hard never to cause you an 
instant's sorrow. If ever I grieve you, dear, I will not 
deserve the toleration of my fellow-men ! 

Dearest, are you sorry you came home? Jack. 

Monday, January 23. 

Dearest : 

What lovely letters you write me ! I used to be the sleepi- 
est sort of a girl in the morning, and Pinky never thought 


106 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


of getting my bath, ready till ten; but now, do you know, 
the postman’s ring always wakes me — sometimes I even 
wake before — and my bell promptly follows the postman’s. 

Am I sorry I came home? Oh, Jack! I am glad a 
heart deep ! 

But I have been trying to summon the fortitude to tell 
you you must only come to see me once a week. Don’t 
you think it would be better? You are so well known, you 
know, and I do not want people to think of us things that 
are not true. It is very wrong that we love each other, but 
people might not understand that it was only the nicest 
lcind of love, if they happened to see you come often, you 
know, and it might hurt you. Don’t think it matters for 
me, for I have no position to maintain; but loving you, 
Jack, I cannot let any shadow from me fall upon you, if 
avoidable. I want to be a help to you, dear, not a detri- 
ment ! 

And so I make a little request: Do not come to see me 
again till next Sunday evening. But all the week I will be 
loving you, and always I am yours, Pehelope. 

January 24. 

Dear Sweetheart : 

I have been thinking all day over your letter received 
this morning, and I am goingto subject myself to the hard- 
ship of not seeing you for two whole days ! But on the 
third day, which is to-morrow, I am coming up to dine with 
you at seven o’clock, if you will share with me the ducks I 
send with this missive (they were shot by an old friend of 
yours, card enclosed). 

Now, darling, you are not to talk to me about your not 
having any “position to maintain.” I don’t want one 
breath of scandal ever to rest upon you, and would give up 
seeing you altogether rather than have one cruel word said 
of you. We will talk it all over when I come to-morrow. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


107 


I am in great haste this morning, but I love you, and am 
loyally yours, John Jerome. 

11 A. m., January 26. 

Jack : 

Let us stop ! I am afraid ! 

. When I came home I meant to see you only as any friend; 
but when you bent to kiss me last night, just as at that first 
time, I was powerless to resist. Oh, Jack 1 I wanted you 
to kiss me; it was positive pain from the moment I saw the 
thought in your eyes through the little instant till your lips 
touched mine — and then — and then. Jack, I did not want 
to run away from you; I went while I could! 

Dearest, don’t you see we must stop seeing each other? 
Twice you have kissed me now, and I am glad when I ought 
to be sorry ! I want you to respect me, dear — to be able to 
think me worthy of love — and so, don’t let us ever again, 
for one moment, forget the insuperable harrier which 
forever must divide us. Penelope. 

January 26. 

Penelope, Darling : 

I am very happy this morning! Only — why did you 
run away? Did you think one was quite enough? 
It certainly was enough to make my heart glad, 
but when a fellow worships a girl he is apt to be greedy ! 
I wish I could come up and spend all the afternoon with 
you, and I may be up about four. You will be wanting to 
see to-day’s Life , and I’ll bring it up to you, possibly! 
(I hear you laugh and say “ probably.”) 

Mrs. Jerome asked me this morning if she could go to 
Europe this spring for six months. Her cousins, the 
Heckshers, are going over. She wants to close the house 
and have me put up at the Club. You never saw anything 
so amiable as my assent to every request! Will you have me 
for dinner every night when my grasswidowerhood begins? 


108 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


Dear little sweetheart! 
one-half so sweet as you ! 


There is nothing in the world 
Your John. 


Wednesday, January 27. 

Were you really “out” dear? Or didn’t you 
want to see me? Di In’t you get my note? I sent it up at 
noon. I bounded uptown at four o’clock with a heart as 
light as thistle-down — and then I ambled downtown to the 
Club with a ton of lead in my breast. Pinky said you 
would not be back until late in the evening. I wonder 
where you were. I thought I would have a line from you 
in the morning mail ; when there was nothing at the office 
I sent the boy to the Club, and found nothing there. 
You aren’t ill, are you, dear? Don’t deceive me about it; 
if you are sick let me know at once. Please send me a line 
by bearer, or I shall worry about you all day. I got 
your dear little note of yesterday just before going up to 
see you. 

Dear, don’t repulse me now. Don’t talk again of our 
not seeing each other. I must see you always . 

Sweetheart, when shall you give yourself to me utterly 
and cease this futile struggle? Do you not know it must 
be — by and by? Do you not know a man and woman can- 
not love each other as you and I care for one another, and 
be satisfied with crumbs 9 Do you not know that there is 
no “ barrier ” on earth or in heaven that can keep me from 
making you mine — sooner or later— unless death shall 
separate us? 

Can I* adoring you, be content, Jcnowing you to be more 
to some other man than you are to me? 

Penelope, I ask of you a great deal, and Cod knows it is 
the deepest bitterness of my life that I have not more to 
offer you in return; but what I ask I ask reverently, dear; 
1 ask you do not resist me, do not flee from me, do not let 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


109 


me think that your love has been a pretense; love me as I 
love you, then you can refuse me nothing. John. 

January 27th. 

Jack : Don't talk to me this way — it hurts! Because I 
have told you the story of my life, would you take advan- 
tage of that knowledge! When I am trying to be like 
other women, would you, through my love for you, drag 
me down again? I have thought you manly— dcn't disap- 
point me. My love is not a “ pretense!” You know how 
dear you are to me, and it is because I love you so 
supremely that I would not cloud our love with sin! 
Dearest, I cannot see you if you cannot be braver. I love 
you so tenderly, Jack, dear, and I want to look up to you, 
to honor you, to feel that you are strong and brave and 
chivalrous. Too strong to let your love for a woman come 
between you and your duty to the woman nearer you ; too 
brave to let temptation get the best of the fight; and so 
chivalrous that you are going to protect a weak little girl 
who adores you — from yourself! Penelope. 

Evening, January 27. 
My Noble Little Sweetheaet: 

Your letter to-day only increased my reverence and un- 
dying love for you. How is it, dearest, that they dragged 
you through the mire, and yet you come out so spotless 
and sweet? I have just returned from my fruitless call 
upon you. I had so much to say to you, and was so deeply 
hurt when your maid told me you were out. Don't you 
think it was a little unfair, Penelope, to run away two 
days in succession? Are you brave? 

Sweetheart, did you ever hear that “ a man protects a 
woman from every man except himself?” 

I wanted to talk to you about many things this evening 
that I fear I can only clumsily put upon paper. I am 


lie 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIMY. 


called to Washington to-night, and leave for New York on 
the late train, and as it will be several days before I see 
you, I write this hasty note. 

Surely you know, my precious, that I would cut off my 
right hand sooner than “drag you to doom!” That I want 
to see you always the same sweet, pure-minded woman 
you are to-day. 

If we love each other, with a love that will endure for 
all time, how can the dearest relations degrade? 

We have much to bear, Penelope; we love each other, 
and Fate separates us; but can we not overcome fate in a 
measure and find life sweeter and more full of glorious 
sunshine, if hand in hand we go, cheered and uplifted by 
each other’s faith and devotion ? 

You do not know how tenderly I would guard you, 
dear, how earnestly I would strive to make you happy — to 
be what you would have me to be, to anticipate your 
slightest wish, to be your slave, and always your lover! 

Can you steel yourself against me, when I only ask you to 
follow the dictates of your own warm little heart? 

Yours always, 

J OHM. 

P. S. — I will be staying at Wormley’s. Will you send 
me a bit of a letter, dear? 

Bostom, Thursday, January 28 . 

Dear Jack: 

I am not sure that I was very brave to run away from 
you — hut somehow there was a little look in your eyes, and 
a clasp of your hands (and your hands always tell me so 
much, Jack!) that made me wonder whither we were drift- 
ing, and I have been shutting myself up to think! When 
I thought of being everything to you there was something 
very beautiful in the thought of that surrender! And then 
came the thought of how little I could give you ! If it 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


Ill 


were eight years ago, and I could knowingly make the sac- 
rifice for you that I unwittingly made then — if I could 
give myself to you to-day as pure as I was then — realizing 
to the utmost all that it betokens — I would not hesitate, 
Jack! There would be a keen sense of joy (which I cannot 
explain — it is something like the ecstasy produced from ex- 
quisite pain, when the torture has become so acute one 
begins to take a strange delight in the agony), in feeling 
that I could sacrifice every earthly prospect and ambition 
to your desire. I love you that much. Jack! 

But I am a woman, dear, whose life is one great stain. 
I have never in my life done one bit of good. I have done 
much harm. My reputation is not unblemished. I had 
grown hard, bitter, reckless — and now — your love softens 
me ; puts into my heart a great yearning to be a better 
woman, to be worthy some of the love that is Heaven itself 
to me after so many years of keenest suffering. Don't you 
see what it is I wish? Not to give myself to you ignobly, 
but to grow a better woman by your side, a woman who 
will be to you Repose — not Unrest. Let us love each 
other always ; let me be your sweetheart — across the barrier. 
I want to be dear to you ; I want to adore you forever — 
what is more dear than the Unattainable? 

And then. Jack, I cannot be the cause of your being 
untrue ! 

Do you know, dear, sometimes I feel as if I were your 
little mother, and that I must keep you from harm, and I 
so long to keep you good and to feel proud of you ! 

One word more: Mrs. Jerome has always been kind tc 
me. She always stops to speak if we meet — and many 
of our old friends do not; and never can I forget how 
good she was to the girls when she had them down one 
winter. 

I am not a nice woman, Jack dear — I am pretty fai 
down in the puddles; but I am going to try very hard to 


112 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


help you remain the dear, loyal, honorable fellow that you 
have all your life been! 

Penelope. 

Washington, Jan. 31st. 

My Own Sweetheart: 

You were a dear little girl to write to me! But your 
letter made me both glad and sad. At times — as I read it 
— I felt like the veriest villain ! Could it be possible that 
you might be more unhappy if you were mine, I wonder? 

Dearest — Mrs. Jerome is a charming woman; I admire 
and respect her always. That I do not love her you know, 
else I could not love you ; but I think you exaggerate the 
disloyalty to her, were you to give your life up to me. 
She speaks to you pleasantly, yes, so she does to the scrub- 
woman or the old apple-man. She had the girls down that 
winter because I asked her — and she is rather an automaton 
about those matters. We get on well, because we see very 
little of each other. I crave tenderness and sympathy. 
Caresses bore her. She is far happier in the nursery with 
Hildegarde and Natalie than she is in spending a quiet 
evening with me. I think she never loved me, Penelope — 
she liked me, and esteems me and is contented to be my 
wife — but her whole heart seems to be given to her children. 
I am not complaining — she is always very good to me in 
giving me my own way, and on my part I have tried to 
give her every pleasure my income will permit. 

In a few weeks she is going away for a long stay, and the 
babies go with her. I always miss them — but I never miss 
her ; and now that every thought is filled with you I have 
felt glad that all my time, outside of business, could soon 
be at your disposal. 

If you feel happier without me, sweetheart, then I must 
stay away from you. But I insist upon one long talk with 
you, first. I want to answer some of the things in your 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


113 


letter — and I want to tell you some of my thoughts about 
you. Day after to-morrow, February 2d, I reach Boston 
at nine in the evening, and I am coming straight from the 
train to you. If Pinky says you are not at home I shall 
come in and wait for you. 

I shall have my grip w ith me, and a box of sandwiches, 
so I assure you I can wait a very long time ! But you 
will not keep me waiting, dearest? I may find you expect- 
ing me? 

You do not know how hungry I am for a glimpse of your 
sweet face. 

Devotedly, 

John. 

Marlborough Club, Beacon Street. 

February 3d. 

My Penelope : 

I have five minutes and I am going to devote them to 
you. I am waiting for Cadwallader, who is to lunch with 
me this noon, and then I have to go on with the Thorn- 
dike case. As soon as I get out of court I am coming to 
you, and we are going to drive out of town somewhere and 
have a little dinner together. Fve just telephoned home 
that I won’t be in till late. Am I “ a fellow of wonderful 
assurance” to inform you so coolly where you will dine? 

Oh, dearest, I am so happy to-day! the air is ozone! I 
shall date the beginning of real life from yesterday. 

My every endeavor shall be to prove myself worthy your 
sweet trust. 

Au revoir. I love you — honor you — adore you! 

John. 

February 6th. 

Dear: 

Do you think I am a sane girl? I cannot quite under- 
stand my happiness! 

8 


114 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


When I thought that perhaps — some time — in the 
intensity of our love for each other, we might, recklessly, 
take this supreme step — I shuddered at that thought, 
thinking that however sweet it might be to be all things to 
you that the to-morrow would be a day of agonizing 
humiliation that I could never face. So, it seems strange 
to me that I have not known one moment of sorrow — one 
pang of regret! It is odd and unnatural, is it not? Do 
you suppose it is because my conscience, my moral sense, 
is dead to all sense of rectitude? 

I have been sitting here this afternoon trying to feel as 
I suppose I ought to feel, sad, and repentant, and all that, 
you know; and, dearest, I can only feel glad! It is so 
delicious. Jack, darling, to feel that I am really a part of 
your life. 

You have not yet regretted? You will never regret? If 
I thought you ever could be sorry — oh, Jack, darling, 
promise me you will not! But no — how stupid to ask 
that! One cannot control love! I am going to put it out 
of my head that you may some day stop loving me, for it 
makes little hurts in my heart — and a heart that is yours 
must never have any sorrow in it. 

Do you know, dear, I should not have lived last fall 
except for my eagerness to see you again! 

I am sure it was my longing to be near you once more 
that kept soul and body together through all those tedious 
weeks of pain. Your love is my life and strength. When 
it ceases, Jack, my life will cease also. 

Good-night. I have been lonely without you this 
evening. Come to me to-morrow, dear. 

Your 

Penelope. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


115 


Monday, February 13th. 

Sweetheart Mine: 

I counted upon being able to devote this evening to you, 
but Mrs. J erome has asked me to take her and our guests 
out to the Country Club. To-morrow night, you know, I'm 
in for that confounded bal masque at the Vendome, but I 
suppose we shaVt go over till about eleven, so I shall try 
to run up early in the evening — just for a half-hour with 
you, dearest. Do you know I long to be with you ever / 
moment? A lifetime would hardly satisfy me! But the 
knowledge that you love me makes the hours I must 
be absent from you much more cheerful than if I longed 
for you with no hope of the desire echoed. 

Yours ever, 

Jack. 

February 18. 

Dearest One: 

I have been thinking to-day. That is very serious, is it 
not ? But my thoughts were serious ! I have been think- 
ing about my life. What a patchwork it has been — and I 
am not very old yet. And I have been thinking about us, 
and how glad life is since your life came into my own. 
And as I thought — I learned what it is to regret. I longed 
my souks depth to be pure and womanly, and of gentle 
thought; to be worthy your generous love that has forgiven 
so much. And then I wondered if I had not been wrong 
and weak and reckless to come into your life. I had 
wrecked my own — would I not be baneful to you? 

But indeed I tried to give you up — to go far away from 
you — and I could not, dear. Does the intoxicated man 
sign a temperance pledge? I said. Just one more glass, 
he craves. “ One more day with him/' I would say — “ just 
one, I love him so." “ But you have no right to his love," 
I would argue — “ a better woman than you, the mother of 


116 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


his babies — ■” “Ah,” would reply the heart that loved 

you, “ the mother of his children — then she has had her 
happiness. He is hers — I cannot claim him, he is the 
father of her babies, not of mine; surely, I divide with the 
scales in her favor when I take but his love. She has his 
respect, admiration, regard, consideration — and presence; 
I starve for his love — why not a little happiness ? — I can- 
not go from it, I cannot give it up ! ” 

And then, sweetheart, these happy, happy days came. 
Days when I am happy with every pulse-beat — only the 
little underlying regret that I am not faultless — for I want 
to be perfect for you , Jack — as you are! 

But I hope earnestly to grow better — to live worthily, 
not to disappoint you, never to cause your love to falter, to 
be a woman — true, loyal, who may be always your own. 

How I wish I could come to you now, sweetheart, 
and be close in your arms, and have your kisses! What- 
ever comes to us, dearest, always remember that I loved 
you. 

I have had my struggle between conscience and heart — 
and love won! It is too late to go back, I do not know 
the way; it is too dark, dreary, terrible. Oh, darling, 
keep me with you, love me, forgive me the things that 
grieve you. I worship you, dear. Your lightest touch is 
a joy to me, and I am forever your own. 

Penelope. 

February 24th. 

Dearest: 

I will write you a little good-night. 

I am not very far from you, but I feel as though it were 
the breadth of a continent distant. My hands ache in 
their longing for your clasping. I want them close in 
your own, and then I would look in your dear face and 
grow glad with the tenderness in your eyes, sweetheart ! 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


117 


It is so great a love in my heart for you. Jack. It 
grows day by day until the hours I must he away from 
you are almost intolerable to endure. I try hard to 
conquer my restless longing, but my whole soul is one in- 
sistent desire for your precious presence. 

I was not fair to you this morning. I have been sorry. 
I lost all control over myself. I thought how little — how 
little — was my right to you — how that I could not say to 
you we will go here, or there, or do this, or that — that I 
must in a few moments see you go away from me — that 
she must be first in your consideration, and that every 
day, always, forever, you were hers — that at night she may 
turn and kiss you — be always near you. And I ? / am a 
woman who worships you; to whom you are dearer than 
heaven, whose whole world you are, to whom your lightest 
word is a bliss or an agony, who is grateful for your 
slightest caress, your mere presence, a woman who would 
suffer everything for your dear sake, and who has only one 
little claim on you, that you love her — now! And it all 
came over me as I sat by you, with your arms about me, 
and I could not keep back the passionate tears, and you 
knew then how I felt and it grieved you. 

I won't ever speak of it again, dear. I am happy almost 
always; and dearest — I am trying to be, as nearly as I may, 
what you would have me, and not to do the things you have 
asked me not to do, but sometimes I know I fail and I need 
your patience greatly. In fact (forgive me!) I've heeri 
drinking all day, Jack — just ever so many things! / had 
to! 

Good-night. 

I take back all the absurd things I said this morning. 
Do not leave any act undone, or word unsaid, which may 
make her life happy — as it is fitting your wife should he. 
Your wife! The words are a music! And her life should 
be that. Forgive me that I was so unreasonable for a 


118 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


moment, and do love me, dear. I have given you myself 
so utterly, I am so absolutely your own. 

Pehelope. 

March 5. 

My Owh Sweetheart: 

How lovely and generous you were to me last night. 
Truly, I will try never to drink another drop — except at 
dinner with you. Indeed I was very unreasonable and bad 
about Mrs. Jerome — but, dearest, I love you so infinitely, 
you are the beginning and the end of every thought, plan, 
wish! Yet, it is for me to endure that you leave me to go 
to another woman — who will have you always her own — 
who will have your little children — who will go forth into 
the world with your name! Is it odd, then, dear, that 
when it is only this hour and that for me, and an uncertain 
future, that I cling so greedily to every little second of 
your presence and grudge her every moment beside you? 

Jack, I just despise me! Don't listen to me! How 
abominable of me to worry you with this unreasonable 
jealousy. And I meant to be so good to you always! 
Perhaps you had better not love me after all! I don't 
believe I ever will be worthy! I am just a bad little out- 
rageous girl, and you'd better not bother with me. 

Pehelope. 

P. S. — Please “ bother " with me one day more. 

I'm not going to drink anything again till your birthday. 

You don't know what it is to be born with devils — you 
are so good and sweet; but I am chock full of the very 
worst devils, and every once in a while it's their day! 
Dear, lovely Jack, I will truly be gooder . Please love me 
two little days more! 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


119 


March 15. 

My Dearest: 

I was awfully put out at not being able to get up to-day. 
A corporation meeting has kept me till now — almost mid- 
night. 

I sent you up some strawberries and some violets, and a 
box of Huyler at four o'clock, and hope they were delivered 
promptly. I was so rushed I could not stop to write a line. 
No, Mrs. Dearest, I shall not send you any cigarettes; I 
don't want you to smoke, please, dear — I hate to see you 
do things that you used to do. A cigarette in your mouth 
is incongruous, and I do not like it in my recollection ! 
Am I an ogre? Tell me what I shall give up in exchange; 
I will make any sacrifice for you, dear sweetheart, for I 
know you are going to humor my whim about the cigar- 
ettes and the cocktails ! I don't mind your having a little 
wine at dinner — but, please, only then! I'll be up to 
lunch to-morrow. Good-night, dear. 

Jack. 


March 20. 

Sweetheart: 

Please expect me to dinner. I send the books you 
wanted, and a little basket of Hamburg grapes. I am in 
haste this morning, but I have time to tell you that I am 
very happy that you are mine ! What a fortunate fellow 
I am to have the loveliest woman God ever made, all my 
own ! I love you better than everything else in life ; your 
love is altogether the dearest thing on earth to me; and 
every day, in my heart, I thank you, that you have given 
yourself to me with no reservation. You are so modest, 
so gentle, so exquisitely womanly, dear. When I picture 
you to myself, I place a nimbus about your head, and wor- 
ship you! Jack. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


130 


The Brevoort, March 31. 

Good-morning, Mrs. Dearest. I am wondering some- 
thing. It is this: If you are wishing one-half so much to 
see me as I am longing this blessed minute for the dearest 
sweetheart man ever possessed! We are all alone now, 
darling. My superior half and the bairns are well on to 
Sandy Hook, and to-morrow I shall come home to you 
and those happy days which are to be a glad memory to 
us, if later the sky grows gray, dear one. I can’t tell you 
half how happy I feel — or how I wish it were Monday. I 
am coming over by night train, and you are to have me to 
breakfast. Will you like that? If you don’t you have 
only to wire me to come later. I long to rush back to-day, 
but Bob needs me; he leaves for ’Frisco Wednesday. You 
know my brother had his mother’s fortune, and father left 
most of his property to me. Poor old Bob lost every penny 
in some Wall street dabbling, and I have to help him onto 
his legs every once in a while. When he marries and set- 
tles down I shall make over to him part of my real estate, 
but at present I am a little hard on him, for he is still oc- 
cupied in sowing tares and seems to keep his shekels in a 
particularly wide-meshed sieve. However, I’m awfully 
fond of him, and he would do anything on earth for me, I 
am confident. 

Au revoir ! I will be with you in two days. I love you, 
my darling, with all my heart. You are a sweet, noble 
little woman, with qualities that kings might envy, and 
few mortals possess. 

And I am forever, 

Your very devoted 

Jack. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIXY. 


121 


Telegram. March 3, 1888. 

To Miss Pexelope Gray, 

999 St. Botolph Street, Boston. 

I reach Boston Monday morning, 6.50. Send for Sunday 
mail. J. J. 

March 4, 1888. 

Pex. 
March 4th. 

Darlixg: 

I hope you were not hurt at my telegram ; but I did not 
like you to arrive so very early the moment Mrs. Jerome 
had gone. Am I altogether absurd? But all the old 
tabbies would be sure to be looking out and think it — well, 
one might safely say odd! I will have you the daintiest 
lunch I can arrange at twelve; and you will like it so much 
that you will forgive me my seeming inhospitality. Won't 
you, dear? What a lovely world this is! Have you hap- 
pened to notice it? I think we have such nice air to 
breathe in Boston! I feel so very well and so happy this 
spring ! I am just learning how beautiful it is to live! 

I read yesterday that man's idea of love was “ domina- 
tion and possession woman's, “ surrender and service." 
I like the definition. It is so sweet to be “ dominated and 
possessed " by you. Jack. Do you remember that little 
poem — “ Surrender f" 

“ Take all of me — I am thine own, heart, soul, 

Brain, body— all; all that I am or dream 
Is thine forever; yea, though space should teem 
With thy conditions, I’d fulfill the whole — 

Were to fulfill them to he loved of thee.” 

Does it tell you all , sweetheart? Good-night. 

Pexelope. 


Mr. oohn Jerome, 

Brevoort House, Hew York. 
Come to early lunch at twelve. 


122 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIXY. 


March 5th. 

Oh, Jack dear, how dreadful it was for us to dispute! I 
am indeed sorry I was so impatient. I don’t see how I could 
have been angry — even for one little instant — with you . 
I have been thinking it all over. I don’t believe we will 
have any serious quarrels, dear, but of course there will be 
moments when we don’t a bit agree with each other, and 
will disapprove of things the other has done; and we may 
say unkind, hasty words. But I think we care too deeply 
for each other not to sacrifice pride, and apologize the 
moment after . We understand and know each other so 
well — preferences, prejudices, customs — and where one’s 
whole aim is to make another happy, surely there should be 
success ! 

I will write you a little vow , sweetheart: 

I, Penelope Gray, promise to you, John Jerome, to live 
a loyal life to you. I will do nothing that I will hide from 
you. I will never tell you an untruth. I will trust and 
believe in you, and endeavor to refrain from annoying 
you with questioning, confident in your lealty. You shall 
ever be my first thought and consideration, and I will love 
you so long as my heart shall beat! 

Suppose we make some rules! 

Let us agree, dear, never to let a “ quarrel ” last over 
twenty-four hours: at the end of that time to talk it over. 
We must never talk over our disagreements with any one. 
And, dearest, we must always trust and believe in each 
other. Suspicion and distrust murder love. 

Oh, Jack, darling, I want so much for us to be happy. I 
love you madly! It isn’t a rational love at all. It sways 
my whole being — it dominates every thought — it is my 
life . 


Pexelope. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


123 


Bar Harbor, July 10. v 

Dear Precious Jack 

How I love you ! And how I miss you ! And how I 
wish it were Saturday night ! And it isn’t — and it won’t 
he for four whole days — and your sweetheart is very 
desolate! 

I meant to have written you a little letter for the morn- 
ing mail. I waked and thought about it! And then 1 
sle])t another hour ! 

I have made a beautiful “ scoop ” to-day. I am not go- 
ing to tell you about it, because you are to read my Tele- 
gram letter! I don’t believe you ever do read one — do 
you? 

My fortune would be quite made if every day were so 
fortunate as this — but one cannot always have fatted livers; 
some are famously lean, it is said! 

I can write you but a line to-night and you shall have a 
long letter to-morrow. Howl must put on a fresh gown for 
dinner — not your favorite one, dear, for that is to be saved 
quite spick and span for Saturday night. Will you try to 
stay till Tuesday ? 

An revoir. 

“ Oh, you, who out of all the world art dearest to my 
heart, more precious than the soul which quickens me, or 
than the eyes that light my path, there is nothing, oh, my 
beloved, dearer than life, and yet, you — ah ! you are a 
thousand times more dear.” 

I love you, sweetheart. Love me, dear. Love me and 
miss me, and be always good to me. Jack. I think of you 
all the day. Whatever my thought, there is always a little 
underlying memory of thee. 

Always your 

Penelope. 


124 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIKY. 


July 10th. 

- My Own Precious: 

I cannot begin to tell you what a lonely fellow you 
have left behind you. Good God! dear, it is frightful 
without you here, after all these happy months. I find 
myself wandering most forlornly around. I get behind 
doors and press open the pretty sham dollar you gave me, 
and confess to myself that I am desperately in love with 
the sweet little face that looks up at me. Shall I confess 
it to you also? And you will not rebuke me? Ah, dear- 
est, if this is folly what a divine folly it is! After these 
many weeks of closest companionship I idolize you be- 
yond conception and would not give you up for a realm. 
How glad I am that you are mine ! I wish I could go to 
you now — that I could he always with you. I wish I could 
bend over you to-day and tell you how all my life centres in 
you, and how necessary you are to me, and how I hope you 
will never leave me — the thought of such a possibility com- 
ing sometimes to me makes me ill and wretched. But you 
will reassure me on Saturday, dear? I feel very sure of you 
when you are with me, but I get gloomy without you, 
darling. Good-night. 

Jack. 

Bar Harbor, July 12. 

My Sweetheart : 

It is always such gladness to me to have you happy that 
I am yours! I look back upon February second as the 
sweetest day in my life — when you took me into your own 
life so completely. I never have one instant's regret. I 
am glad a whole heart full, and it is my one deep wish 
that I may remain always a happiness to you — be always 
yours. I will never leave you. Jack; don't let it enter 
your thought. A woman loves forever, but a man — will 
you always love me , dear? 


Jl little game with DESTlMY. 125 

I, too, wish I could be with you always. As you grow 
to be so great a part of my life — as I have come to worship 
you — now that I love you so dearly that I suffer in this 
terrible distance from you — my whole heart will cry out 
sometimes to be with you always, before the world, every 
day of all the glad years God should give unto us. But I 
stifle the heartache these thoughts bring to me. It cannot 
be; and I have surely a taste of heaven when you love me, 
and I am yours. And no heartache can ever he too heavy 
to bear when its recompense is your arms about me — your 
love mine. 

Pehelope. 

Bostom (alas!), 

Thursday, July 19. 

My Own: 

I have been down at Marblehead all day. The club- 
house is full, or I would have remained over night. How 
I do wish it would do to stay at Bar Harbor two or three 
weeks, near you ! But I agree with you that it would be 
horribly unwise; however, it was very hard to leave you yes- 
terday — it is hard to be without you even for a little while. 

I am going down to Beverly this Sunday to stay with 
the Fabians, and to Newport the Sunday after. Then Fll 
come down in the yacht to Bar Harbor, and perhaps 
we might run off for a day somewhere — do you think we 
might ? 

I enclose you a letter I found from Bob at the Club to- 
night. I shall think it over before answering, for if I send 
him abroad for another year's study I want to feel sure 
that he will really do creditable work. The boy has genius, 
but he is incorrigibly lazy. What do you advise me? 

Good-night, little sweetheart. 

Glad dreams attend thee. 

Your lonely 

Jack, 


126 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


Bar Harbor, August 7. 

Dearest: 

Your nicest of all letters just came to me. I think each 
day that that day’s letter is surely the loveliest you have 
ever written me, and the next day, somehow, there comes a 
dearer one yet. 

Jack, I love you so dearly that I do not know any words 
in the language which will tell you all about it ! I can 
only try to show you how I love you by my life, which 
shall be governed by your wish. I will not join the yacht* 
ing party since you feel so about it. I will not do any 
thing which you say I am not to. You will tell me what I 
am to do, and you will know it will be always as you wish. 
I am your own now, Jack, body soul and will . 

It has been lately that I have grown more and more 
reliant upon you — closer and closer into your will and in- 
fluence. I could not do this all at once — I have been 
always so headstrong, so ungoverned — it has taken time , 
but the time has come, dear, when I love your commands, 

I have tiied not to be lonesome; but I do long for Sep- 
tember and home t I have not cried a tear since the night 
you went away; I have not allowed myself to think about 
coming to you; I have kept very busy all day. But under- 
neath all — a surging undercurrent — is the never-ceasing 
cry for you, sweetheart — the eager longing for your pres- 
ence. for your touch, which quickens so the beat of my 
pulse, and for your kisses, which make my heart so glad I 
do not envy the angels in Paradise! 

Tell me always, as you did now, when I make some plar 
you do not approve. It shall be given up cheerfully. 

Have you heard from Bob again? 

Louise has settled in a little French village, in a queer 
old chateau, and intends to stay all the autumn there. 

Good-night, dear precious. I send you a loving kiss — 
and my heart. Pehelope. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


12 ? 


August 30. 

Dear Sweetheart: 

Your little note, with its delicious odor of your cigar, is 
just come to me. I breathe it and love it ! It makes me 
feel a nearness to yourself ! Do you know I have not 
smoked a cigarette all summer, nor played one tiniest 
game of poker, nor drank one bit of anything but claret- 
cup ! Am I a good little girl ? I am not going to write 
you a letter to-day. Fll tell you why to-morrow. If you 
should happen to be walking down St. Botolph street to- 
morrow evening, and you should see a light you knew, and 
you should ring a certain bell, and — well, I won’t say 
whether you’ll find any kisses for you there or not, hut 
you might, by chance, find your Sweetheart 

Lehox, October 20. 

My Jack : 

I have something so wonderful, so beautiful, so dear to 
tell you ! 

I thought at first I would not write you about it, as I 
will so soon he with you again; and then, I thought if you 
should not be so glad as I — if, watching for delight in your 
eyes, I should see instead regret — that would break my 
heart. So I write you all about it now, and I beg you 
will be glad with me, dearest, for half the sweetness will 
be gone if I have not your whole sympathy. 

I feel now that we indeed belong to each other, and I 
look forward with indescribable joy to the day when I will 
be your baby’s mother . 

Is it not beautiful ? Are you not glad that it is that I 
have to tell you ? 

You know I have always thought there could be no 
greater happiness than to be the mother of a baby whose 
father one adored ; but that this supreme joy would ever 
be mine, I dared not dream. 


128 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 


I feel humbly my own unfitness to be a mother, but, 
dearest, I will not lightly treat the sacred trust, and I 
anticipate reverently the day when I may take our child in 
my arms. 

Yo u will trust me with it? You will not say I must 
give it up? I couldn’t , Jack. It means so very much to 
me ! 

Of course I must go away very soon. If you only might 
go with me ! But I realize how impossible that is. So I 
think I would like to go to France — to Louise. May I, 
Jack ? She is next dearest to you, and I would be very 
desolate alone But I will not plan — I will wait for your 
suggestion; only I would ask this — you will be with me, 
dear, wherever I am, when our baby is born ? Please 
promise this ! It will be in the early summer, and you can 
take a little trip for rest, you know. 

I lie awake in the moonlight and build chateaux 
d’Espagne! There are always three inhabitants of my 
castle drawing-room, and one is wee of stature, and has 
features in miniature of John Jerome ! John Jerome , 
Junior! How alliterative ! And my son cannot be 
named so ! 

Has every rose a thorn ? 

Write me, darling, quick, quick! Tell me you are glad — 
happy ! Tell me it is your dearest wish gratified — what I 
tell you to-day 1 Would I see your eyes proud and pleased 
if I looked into them, dear, this moment ? 

My heart is full — every niche and crevice — with tender- 
est love for you, and I am very happy to-night that I am 
Your Pehelope, 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


129 


Telegram. 

Boston, October 22, 1889. 
To Robert D. Jerome, Esq., 

Bohemian Club, San Erancisco. 

Mailed letter of importance to you to-day. Be prepared 
to leave for the East on knowing its contents. John. 

Boston, October 22. 

Dear Robert : 

I have been pacing my floor all the morning trying to 
see my way out of serious difficulty — and only one avenue 
suggests itself — I come to you. 

My heart sinks when I think of the sacrifice I am about 
to ask of you ; but for God's sake, dear boy, don't fail me ! 

You have always told me you would go a long way to do 
me a favor. It is a long way I ask you to go now. At 
stake is my honor, my conscience, my whole life's peace. 

To begin at the beginning — I am in love! The woman 
I worship is not my wife ! If she only were my wife — if I 
were only single — if I owed no duty to the children, how 
different matters would be ! 

I do not know if I can make you understand all my feel- 
ing in the matter ; I do not know if you can put yourself, 
mentally, in my place; but. Bob, I must beseech you to 
stand by me, as God knows I would by you. 

The woman I love is mine ! and for six blessed months I 
have been infinitely happy. She has been away from me 
for the past few weeks, and to-day a letter came from her 
telling me her exceeding happiness that in the early sum- 
mer she will be the mother of my child ! 

The world is harsh to women who sin, Bob, no matter 
how deeply they love, and my heart's idol shall never be 
exposed to disgrace. 

Her name and that baby's name must be Jerome 1 

And I ask you this, to come East at Once on receipt oi 

9 


130 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY, 


this letter prepared to be quietly married a few days after 
your arrival to the woman I love, and thus give her our 
name and your protection. You will go at once to France. 
She will stay with an oid friend who is living in a quiet 
little French village, while you pursue your studies in 
Taris, making occasional trips to the little town where you 
have established her. 

You will have ten thousand dollars placed at your dis- 
posal for the year you will remain abroad. After the child 
is born you will desert your wife (incompatability of temper 
can be alleged), and she will divorce you. 

That you give her your name is all I wish. In all other 
respects she is mine — your sister 

You will find her companionable and never tedious, and 
modest and pure-minded, notwithstanding her situation. 
She is twenty-five years old, exquisitely pretty, charming 
in carriage and manner, and dainty and sweet in her dress 
and personality. 

Wire me your reply. I shall await it anxiously. Should 
you be unable to make this sacrifice for me — and I appre- 
ciate its enormity — I shall put half my property in Mary's 
name, and ignoring all things, I shall take my little sweet- 
heart and go very far away. She cannot stay here and 
face — shame! She shall not bear her fate alone! 

I think I have said all. I leave for Lenox in an hour, 
and place before her my wishes as I have stated them to 
you. Affectionately your brother, 

John. 

If anything should happen — if the baby were left moth- 
erless, I mean — I would adopt the child. 

It almost drives me mad to think you will have the right 
to say — as / long to — “She is my wife!” But, good God! 
ivhat can I do ? 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


131 


Telegram. 

San Francisco, October 29, 1889. 

John Jerome, Esq , 

Marlborough Club, Boston. 

Your letter read. I leave for Boston to-night. I am at 
your disposal. Robert. 

Boston, October 29th. 

My Precious Little Girl: 

The enclosed telegram from Bob will tell you that I did 
not count upon him in vain, and I am sure my dear sweet- 
heart will be as generous to me as my brother. 

I worship the ground you tread on, dear, and while my 
proposition may seem brutal, it is the only possible way to 
give you your wish and save you from ultimate sorrow. I 
may be making an irreparable error in giving you your way 
about the child, but my inclination when coupled with your 
pleading is hard to ignore, and I give up to your wish, 
which has become mine And now, dearest, I want you to 
give me my way in the rest of the matter — to bring your in- 
clination into harmony with my judgment. You know 
you promised only a little while ago to love my com- 
mands,” and you rebel at the very first I have made, 
dear! 

Don't you suppose it will be hard for me to give you to my 
brother, whatever I make the conditions? To look forward 
to five long months of dreary separation, before I can hope 
to join you? To see Robert put on your finger the ring I 
would sell my soul to place there? But with what horror 
and anguish I would live thiough the next six months if I 
could not feel you had this protection and shield. I would 
a thousand times rather see you married in reality than 
that! This marriage ceremony will lift a tremendous 
burden from my soul. I trust you unhesitatingly to Bob. 
He is wild and extravagant, perhaps, but he is loyalty itself, 


132 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY 


and will take tenderest care of you, and never forget that 
you are mine . 

And in conclusion, my darling, I want you to think of 
your sisters. You love them and they love you. Do not 
let the possibility of scandal mar their happy lives. Do as 
I implore you, and then I will at least feel that you are pro- 
tected from cruel gossip so far as I can master it. 

Wire me yes , dear. I worry night and day as matters 
stand. Remember that you are all the world to me, and 
that I only ask you to do what I imperatively feel is for 
your salvation. If you refuse me again, you do not care for 
me with one -tenth of the devotion I feel for you. I only 
ask you to consider our best good, and instead of going 
alone to France, and exposing yourself to miserable innuen- 
do, to go under escort of my brother, who will place every 
care about you. 

I have pleaded my case. Will the Honorable Court 
decide upon its established merits? 

My dear, precious little darling J You are so sweet, and 
I love you madly! 

John. 


[end of part Second.] 


FART III 



FART III. 


Chapter I. 

** Under the faces are hearts, you know.’ 

The village of Ste. Anne de Bellevue is situated about 
three miles from the old town of Duchesne, in Central 
France. The river Loire runs here, through a great valley, 
with high ridges on either bank at some distance from the 
stream, and on one of these ridges Duchesne is built, and 
on that opposite, Ste. Anne. 

You who have been there know how beautiful it is on 
one of the shining, showery days so common in this climate 
to stand on the hillside above the village and watch the 
clouds and the sunshine flit alternately across the great 
green valley, with its poplars and lindens, and the curi- 
ous little brown cottages dotted like mushrooms over the 
vale. 

Standing on a high terrace is the Chateau de Bellevue, a 
large house with an ancient dormer roof. At the time of 
the Huguenot persecutions, centuries ago, the Huguenots 
are said to have held meetings here, and to have been de- 
tected on the terrace, by those watching from Duchesne, by 
the glitter of their armor. But to-day the quiet chateau 
standing in the bright sunlight, with the swallows flutter- 
ing about its roof, the climbing roses, white, crimson and 
yellow, crowding its gardens and terraces, pink wallflowers 


136 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


and scarlet poppies springing from its crumbling gray 
walls, and the innocent faces of little children peeping over 
its battlements, make it altogether difficult to imagine the 
place once a fortification and the scene of warfare and 
bloodshed. 

On the high terrace, a hundred feet above the road, 
where the peasants and their loaded donkeys go by all day,^ 
grow flowers and fruit-trees and shrubs in profusion, and 
from this terrace one looks across miles of the fertile coun- 
try to the white walls of Duchesne Castle, even so far, 
sometimes, when the day is fine, as the distant Cathedral 
of Lorraine. 

The walls of the Chateau de Bellevue are very thick. 
The original large rooms have been partitioned off into 
smaller ones, still quaint enough with their tiled floors, 
raftered ceilings and wainscoted walls and their thoroughly 
French furnishing, which largely consists of gilded mirrors 
*nd feather-beds. A queer little vegetable garden runs 
downhill from the front door, and when the cook goes out 
to gather the salad for dinner she climbs down a narrow 
flight of steps cut in the rock from terrace to terrace, one 
planted with lettuce, another with beans, and so on. 

But individual with Ste. Anne are the astonishing homes 
of the peasantry. Julius Caesar, in far-away ages, ex- 
cavated great caverns in the soft rock of the cliff, or ridge, 
and used them as granaries for his cavalry. Now, instead 
of corn and oats, these caverns are filled with the wooden 
chests and copper pots of the French peasants — they have 
made homes of them. Chimneys have been pierced 
through the rock above these caverns, so that as the cliff 
rises in terraces the chimney of one cave-house comes up 
in the garden of the house above. Figure to yourself the 
spectacle of a brick smoke-stack, covered with ivy, and 
sending forth blue smoke, springing out of the solid 
ground in the midst of roses and cabbages l 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


137 


The peasants are a kindly people ; and as they tramp 
patiently by their donkeys on the winding road by the 
chateau, they always look for the sweet-faced lady who 
loves the little children, calling them to her in the garden, 
and sending them home gay with ribbons and laden with 
big ripe plums ar d peaches. 

Two American ladies dwell in the castle; and, on Sun- 
day, Morsieur, the artist, who is the husband of la belle 
Madame , forsakes his atelier in Paris and dines witii the 
ladies at the Chateau de Bellevue. 


Chapter II, 


“ In many ways doth the full heart reveal 
The presence of the love it would conceal.” 

“ Penelope, darling! ” 

“ Yes, Lou, dear.” 

“ I want you to put up that sewing and drive down to 
the station with me to meet Bob.” 

“ You go. I want to finish this little ruffle.” 

“Now, look here, Madame Jerome, do you think I am 
going to scandalize the village by driving to the station 
alone for the husband of my friend ? And do you think I 
can be responsible for your stifling yourself in here day 
after day? Come on, you lazy little thing! Here’s your 
very prettiest chapeau , and I’m going down to gather you 
some roses to further adorn yourself.” 

“ Louise, do you know I can never feel comfortable in 
Robert’s presence? He is lovely to me, just as Jack said 
he would be, but in his gentleness there seems an under- 
lying pity and — and — a repressed — contempt! I am 
wretched every moment he is here.” 

Louise Montague was half-sitting on a corner table dig- 
ging her daintily shod toes into the sanded floor, but she 
sprang up and went quickly to the divan as her friend 
spoke, and threw her arms impetuously about her. 

“ Penelope, how can you talk so? Contempt for you ? 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


139 


If he dared feel anything hut the deepest admiration for 
you he should never put his foot in my door. This is my 
house, and he shall never come in it if he has any such 
feeling.” The bronze slipper stamped viciously down on 
the sand. “But I know it is untrue,” she continued; “I 
do not think he is so infamous.” 

“ It would not he infamous, Louise, dear. It would be 
very natural. I cannot talk to him about it all. He does 
not know how I worship Jack — how I feel that my great 
love for him hallowed all our relations, that they are pure 
to me , and sacred, that there is no sacrifice on earth I would 
not make for him, that his best interest is first in my 
thought and desire, that I am as ambitious for him as he 
is for himself, that if I thought the outcome of all this 
would ever be detrimental to him I would shoot myself 
dead to-night.” The torrent of words ceased with a sob, 
and Penelope buried her face in the cushions, crying 
piteously, “ Oh, Jack, Jack! It is so long to be without 
you. I want to go home ! I want to go home ! I cannot 
live without Jack any longer.” 

Miss Montague knit her fair brow in perplexity. She 
was sitting on the floor by the couch now, with her cheek 
pressed close to the wet little cheek on the pillow. 

“You are nervous and tired, darling. I have let you 
sew too long. IPs only a little month more till Jack comes. 
I thought you were happy with me.” She passed her hand 
gently over the pretty head and softly kissed the fingers 
tightly clasped in her own. “ I love you so dearly, Penel- 
ope; I do not love any one in the world but you; and I 
did hope you were as happy with me as I am in having you 
here, dear.” 

A flushed little face with two limpid violet eyes rose 
from the pillow and kissed the face bending over her. 
“You must think me abominable, Louise. I have hardly 
ever been happier in my life than here at Anne. But 


140 


A LITTLE GAME WITH LESTIHY. 


I miss Jack ! It seems as though I could not wait another 
month to see him, for, Louise, dear, I think I may not live 
after the baby comes, and I long to have the few days 
left to me with Jack. Do you think I would be wrong to 
ask him to come a little sooner than he planned?" 

“We’ll cable him to-day, dear, if you want him. Bob 
shall do it the minute he comes. But you must not have 
such gloomy thoughts, Penelope Jerome. I’ll have to cable 
him you are sick, if you keep this up, and that will frighten 
him to death (and then he can’t come) ! " 

“ Oh no, please don’t tell him that. We’ll only say I’m 
lonesome — to come earlier if possible." 

“ Well, I’ll only say that if you will he cheerful and nice 
and civilized; but if you talk to me about dying and about 
people looking askance at you, I shall cable him, * Penelope 
demented. Hustle to France ! ’ " 

Penelope’s tears dried as she burst into a long laugh. 
She rose slowly and began folding up tiny ruffles and laces 
and dainty garments of Liliputian design. 

“ It is too late to go to the station, isn’t it, Louise ?" 

But the question was answered as the door was flung 
open, and a tall young man with a blond beard and a cap- 
tivating smile greeted them. The smile died out as he saw 
the traces of tears on Penelope’s pale face. He crossed the 
room hastily and kissed her cheek — holding her hand and 
looking anxiously down at her. She was passive under the 
caress, and did not raise her eyes to meet his. They stood 
thus a moment; then he dropped her hand and turned to 
speak to Louise. She was just vanishing out of the door 
he had entered, but she turned an instant and threw back 
at him a searching glance, which at once puzzled and dis- 
comfited him. 


Chapter III. 


“I have looked on a face that has looked in my heart, 
Aa deep as the moon ever fathoms a wave." 


“ Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart, 

Tis woman's whole existence." 

Penelope was certainly not well. 

Not that they expected her to be very strong, but she 
seemed singularly weak and listless, and passed whole days 
lying on a couch by the window, looking oyer the vale 
toward Duchesne. 

She did not sew laces on diminutive ruffles now, but lay 
with her hands idly clasped, watching the shifting shadows 
in the valley, always intently thinking, thinking . 

Louise tried in vain to rouse and interest her. She 
brought the peasant children in, with their pretty delicate 
features and dark Moorish skin — destined, alas! to lose 
their beauty early, for they were a consumptive race, and 
no wonder, dwelling in those cavernous huts. Penelope 
held their little hands (which Louise had scrubbed to a 
wonderful cleanliness with hot soapsuds before presenting 
them) and listened to their pretty patois, but she seldom 
tried to talk to them now. 

They had cabled to John, but he could not come till 
June, he replied. There was to be a meeting of the Atchi- 
son stockholders, and it was imperative that he should be 


I ±2 A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIHY. 

on hand; and he had written very lovingly to Penelope 
and explained it carefully to her — and now in a week he 
was due. 

Robert never failed to come on Saturday now. He spent 
all his time with Penelope — read to her, bathed her head 
— was untiring in his attention and jentle care. Penelope 
thanked him shyly. She never talked to him much; but 
she, in turn, read to him at times; he always found his 
linen with the stitch in time carefully taken; his favorite 
dishes for dinner when they dined in the little arbor on 
Sunday; and when he went away on Sunday evening, he 
drove reluctantly down the driveway, and felt melancholy 
to find himself in ample time for the train. 

It was very peaceful and refreshing, he said to himself, 
at the big chateau on the high terrace, amid the poppies and 
the roses, and the fragrant blossoming fruit-trees, after glar- 
ing, glittering Paris, with its never-ceasing turmoil. The 
soft-spoken peasant maids with their high caps and spotless 
cotton gowns — the two women so different — both charm- 
ing! Louise, tall, commanding haughty, but full of spirits, 
amiable, and adoring her friend. Penelope, petite and 
exquisite. Clad always in delicate neglige, smothered in 
laces, her pale face lighted by deep-searching violet eyes 
oftenest hidden by their long dark lashes, but now and 
then resting calmly upon you in what seemed a pathetic 
pleading. She was lying on the divan now, looking 
intently at Louise, who was buried in a big chair, with De 
Maupassant’s last novel. Louise felt the look and moved 
uneasily; finally she looked up laughing. 

"Well, dear, is my nose crooked, or have I a wart over 
the left eye?” 

Penelope was silent a moment longer. 

“ Louise, do you think Jack loves me?” 

“I think Jack adores you, Penelope. How can you 
doubt him?” 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


143 


Penelope turned back to the window with a sigh. 
Louise was by her in an instant. 

“ Tell me all about it, dear.” 

“ There is not much to tell,” she answered. “ I feel so 
tired now* and I cannot occupy myself, and so I think a 
great deal. Men do not love as women love — that is all. 
If J ack had cabled for me I would have gone at any sacri- 
fice. It is selfish for me to want him so, I know. He 
would have come if he could, wouldn't he? Only, Louise, 
I do sometimes wonder if it was only infatuation he felt 
while I was near him — if there was a magnetism in my 
presence which is annulled by distance. (Don't shake 
your head so hard — it tires me.) I'm not saying it is all 
so— but I lie here and think about it, and long for him. 

“ Then I think about Robert, and wonder if he forgives 
me for marrying him and ruining all this year of his life 
(don't squeeze my hand so hard — it hurts me, dear; I'm not 
cross, but I feel so — so — tired — and I hurt so absurdly easy).'' 

“ Yes, dear; and what else do you think?” 

“ I think about the baby. I am just learning that I did 
wrong. I only thought how gloriously happy I would be 
to have a baby all my own — mine and Jack’s! It seemed 
to me I would be happier than any other woman in the 
world. I have planned all its little life over and over 
again. I always think of the baby as a boy — and the exact 
image of Jack — and how he will grow up manly and chiv- 
alrous like Jack — and my heart is bursting with joy when. 
I think of hearing him first say Mamma! And then I 
think how— after all — he will be born the child of a man 
who is not his father! I wonder if he will ever find out all 
the deception and intrigue?” She sat up and turned from 
the window to Louise (she had been staring dreamily 
down the roadway as she talked)— 1 “ I wonder if it will all 
be told him some day, and he will come to me and tell me, 
he — my little baby — despises me?” 


144 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


Both women were silent. Louise’s eyes filled with tears. 

“ For God’s sake, Penelope, don’t talk so ! How could 
he ever know? There’s only you and I and Bob and J ack 
who know, and none of us will tell your child.” 

“ I feel as if he could read it in my face some day,” she 
went on, quietly. “ Then sometimes I think he will never 
see my face — that God will not let me live to care for him. 
You know there is a law of compensation. I have always 
been so wicked ! I did not quite realize till now — but I 
think, Louise, that perhaps God will punish me as he did 
Moses. Ever since I loved Jack I have longed for this su- 
preme happiness, and now that the moment is almost mine, 
I think it will be snatched away from me. I dreamed last 
night that I was dead, and that I had never seen my baby.” 

The clouds shifted over the sunlight on the poplars. 
Louise lifted her face to Penelope, then sprang hurriedly to 
her feet and rang the bell. A little colored maid with fan- 
tastic bandanna appeared in the doorway smiling, but grew 
pale under her dusky skin as she glanced at the couch by 
the window. 

“Mrs. Jerome has fainted, Pinky. Help me to take her 
to the air. ” 

But they were both pushed unceremoniously aside as 
Robert Jerome rushed to the divan and gathered the limp 
body into his arms. 

“Robert! how did you happen down to-day?” gasped 
Louise. 

“ I do not know. I felt impelled to come,” he mur- 
mured, as he forced brandy between the white lips. “ She 
is my wife!” he muttered, doggedly, “ and I love her!” 


Chapter IV. 


“ Ah, Love ! Could you and I with Him conspire 
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, 

Would not we shatter it to bits — and then 
Remould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire ?” 

It was very dark in the room. A white-coifed nun 
moved noiselessly about, or fanned a motionless figure in 
the small white cot. The fragrance of the fruit blossoms 
wafted a delicate odor through the still room. Without, a 
quaint little brass clock in the hallway monotonously ticked 
the moments. 

Across the hall was another darkened room, where a tall 
man paced listlessly up and down, with his head bent 
wearily. A woman stepped softly into the room, hesi- 
tated, and turned to go again, but he called her back. 

“ Don't go, Louise. Stay and tell me. Has the doctor 
been?" 

“ Not yet, Robert. He said this morning he had great 
hope. She is sleeping quietly." 

“ Lender opiates," he muttered. “ How's the baby ?" he 
asked, more gently. 

"I don't know," she replied sadly. “He seems so 
unnaturally quiet. Don't you think he ought to cry ?" 

Robert did not feel competent to answer. He had a 
vague impression that all babies cried twenty-three hours 


146 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIMY. 


a day, but Penelope’s baby was probably a very different 
one from any other. 

“ She will be glad it is a boy/’ Louise said. 

“My God ! I wish Jack would get here/’ said Robert, 
as he resumed his restless pacing down the library. 

“ He is due to-morrow ?” 

“ Yes.” 

* ***** * 

“ Sister !” 

“ Out, madame .” 

“ I feel very ill.” 

“ Yes, poor little one, I know.” 

“ I want Jack.” 

“Jack ?” 

“ I want Jack.” 

“ Monsieur, your husband ?” 

“ I want Jack.” 

The little nun moved quietly to the doorway and looked 
out. Louise came to her quickly. 

“ Madame desires her husband.” 

Louise looked back and beckoned. Robert came, won- 
deringly. “ She wants me?” he queried, incredulously. 

Louise took the little nun and led her out to the 
gallery. 

Penelope was no longer pale. Her face was flushed and 
feverish. 

“You were good to ask for me, Penelope,” said Robert, 
and took the fan the nurse had laid down. 

Penelope did not speak. She reached her hand out 
quietly, and Robert took it very gently and carried it to 
his lips, then put it back on the coverlet still clasped in 
his own. 

“ Robert,” she whispered, “ I could never get the cour- 
age to talk with you about it, but I think I can now. I 
loved Jack, and he thought it was best for me to marry 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


147 


you, and I wanted always to do all he asked. I have seen ” 
— she rested for a moment — “ I have seen I was cruel to 
you. You sacrificed yourself for us. It was noble of you.” 

“Penelope” — he choked back something that seemed 
to hurt his throat — “ I want to tell you that my whole life 
was worthless until I knew you. I can never thank you 
enough for your influence. Your sweet content in this 
simple life charmed me ; your generosity, your nobility of 
character, your courage, filled me with admiration ”• — he 
stopped abruptly. The flush deepened on Penelope’s face. 

“ I wanted to ask you to forgive me,” she said, “and — 
to he good to my baby.” 

“ I shall idolize him,” he said, vehemently. “ And I owe 
you gratitude for this marriage. It has made me a new 
man. It has given me something serious to think about. 
I have worked hard. I am sure old Jack will give me 
credit when he comes” — again he checked himself. 

“ I want to give you a message for Jack.” 

“ Why, he’ll he here to-morrow, dear.” 

A shadow flitted over her face. 

“ To-morrow I will not be here! Tell Jack I was selfish 
to cable him last month, and I understand he could not 
come, and that I have been happy with Louise — that you 
and she have been so good and sweet to me. Tell him that 
I love him. Tell him, Robert, that I thank him for every- 
thing, but most of all for my baby; to have lived to have 
held our child in my arms is a recompense for every bitter 
moment in all my life! I wanted Jack, you know” — the 
pathetic little voice trembled, Bob bit his lips to keep them 
firm — “• oh, I wanted him, Robert” — she paused again, Bob 
could not speak — “ but you see it was best he did not come, 
it would have broken my heart to tell him this last good- 
bye, to leave him suffering ’’—the tears were slowly conrs- 
ing over the scarlet cheeks — “ tell him. Bob, it breaks my 
heart to leave him, never to see him again!” 


148 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


The nurse came gently into the room. 

“ Oh, monsieur!” she cried, alarmed at the heightened 
pulse and tearful face. 

Louise followed silently. 

“ She is delirious,” said Robert. 

Penelope smiled ; a ghost of her old merry smile. 

“No; come nearer, Louise. I am tired, you know. I 
thank you . for everything. You have been so good — so 
good to me always. Be good to my little baby, dear! I 
want him christened John Jerome.” The smile grew 
sweeter as she pronounced the name. “Tell Jack I was 
happy to-day; tell him I loved him dearly .” 

The sister came back with the medicine. 

“ She must be quiet,” she said. 

They kissed her cheek. The eyes were closed again, the 
face pallid and motionless now; silently, together, they 
left the room. 

“ Sister, bring my baby,” she whispered. 

The nun hesitated a moment, then sadly shook her head, 
for what could it matter now? she would soon be past all 
fatigue and suffering; and she brought the sleeping child 
and laid it down by Penelope. 

Penelope opened her eyes dreamily. 

“ I am so tired — but happy ,” she murmured, gazing at 
the wee head pillowed on her arm. 

“ Madame is fatigued with the pain.” 

“The pain was beautiful,” she said. “Oh, Jack! oh, 
Jack! — I thank you, dearest.” 

It was Louise who opened the door an hour later. The 
nurse placed the baby's waxen fingers in her hand. 

“He is dead!” she gasped, horrified. “How will we 
ever tell Madame?” 

“ There will be no need, Mademoiselle,” said the little nun, 
crossing herself as she fell on her knees by the white cot. 

But Louise rushed from the room shrieking. 


Chapter V. 


. . . ‘‘We can only play the game according to the number of 

dots <m the face of the dice which Destiny throws into the hollow of 
the cup.” 

It was midnight. The rain beat sullenly against the 
panes, and the north wind swept under the eaves with a 
demoniacal wail and moaning. The chateau on the ter- 
race was lighted brightly. The dead woman who lay so 
silently on the little white cot with the frail baby form 
clasped to her was not left alone nor in darkness. A black- 
robed sister and a smooth-faced priest knelt at the bier. 
At her head seven tapers dispelled the gloom, and seven 
other tapers at her feet shed a soft light over the room. 

In the room above Louise knelt at the open window, 
never heeding the draught that blew the little candle flames 
hither and thither. 

Robert's room was lighted also, as he ever paced the long 
floor back and forth, back and forth — hour after hour. 

Suddenly he roused himself — stopped in his walk a mo- 
ment, then crept softly down the stairs to the room where 
Penelope lay. 

*‘I will watch," he said quietly to the kneeling figures; 
"please leave me." 

The candles flickered wantonly, throwing grotesque 
shadows about the room. No sound came through the 
thick partitions. The dear, dead woman lay in her stately 


150 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTIMY. 


sleep with an expression of ineffable peace and content, her 
cheek resting on the tiny face for the brief possession of 
which she had given her life. Her sad, pitiful, little life! 
Kobert knelt beside her. “Was it better she should be 
done with it all ?” he asked. “ What was life ? What was 
her life? Had it been worth all the heartaches and tears? 
Would the future have brought sunshine or shadow to 
her?” 

The wheels rolling through the soft mud made no sound. 
The door stood ajar — for the priest had asked that it be so; 
and no one heard the traveler who quietly alighted and 
tiptoed gently in. 

“ She must be already ill,” he said to himself, while his 
heart beat tumultuously at the thought of so soon clasping 
his precious Penelope in his arms, and, perhaps, his baby, 
too. 

He hesitated in the hall a moment. Ah, there was a 
light from under a door. He would not knock. He would 
go softly in and surprise them, then bound upstaiis to 
Penelope. She must be sleeping. How very still it all 
was. Gently he turned the knob and stood on the threshold. 

The rain had ceased now. The moon cast a long silvery 
ray through the window down the length of the room. It 
fell on the face of a woman who lay in sombre silence upon 
a cot less white than she. It fell on a little face whose 
miniature features resembled the ghastly face in the door- 
way, whose eyes stared into the loom in anguish and 
horror. 

“Seven candles at her head and seven at her feet!*' 
Twice he counted them, nor yet moved, but stood trans- 
fixed. 

So still? What was that? A long, shivering sob broke 
the silence. Was she not dead, then? He took a step 
forward. Again a low cry, a stifled sob. He peered into 
the shadow. 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINY. 


151 


“Bob !” 

Slowly a tall man rose from his knees by the bier, still 
shaking with emotion; rose to his full height and looked 
silently at his brother. 

“You have come,” he said. “Now you may go. I 
guarded her loyally for you. I was only a brother to her. 
She worshiped you, and you killed her. Week after 
week she sat here watching for you, growing weaker and 
paler each day, and you sacrificed her for your paltry 
schemes of finance. Go !” His voice trembled in its in- 
tensity and passion. “ I am her husband, and I order you 
to leave me with the body of my wife.” 

Jack stood riveted to the spot an instant, his face 
so miserably white, his eyes staring piteously at his 
brother; then he tottered, reeled, to the bedside and threw 
his arms about the man who so sternly faced him, burying 
his face on his shoulder with a mute, beseeching gesture. 
“ Robert,” he moaned ; “ brother, for God’s sake spare 
me!” 

But Robert answered not. 

The moonlight shifted as they stood there till it fell on 
the two men, and at last the face of one grew softer, and 
gently raising his arms, lie placed them about his brother. 
Then in a low tone he spoke : 

“I was a brute, John. She loved you. She would for- 
give you ; she did forgive you ; she told me I was to say 
to you that she understood that you could not come or you 
would have done so; to tell you that she loved you and 
was grateful to you for all your love and tenderness ; but 
above all things she thanked you for consenting to let her 
have her baby — ” His voice broke; he turned hastily away 
and flung himself on the little couch where Penelope lay 
watching so many days with the never-ending hope that 
Jack might come. 

But the other man sank on his knees by the bier and 


152 


A LITTLE GAME WITH DESTINE 


kissed the cold, colorless lips which never bet jre had been 
unresponsive; the lips, the eyes, the forehead — again and 
again he pressed his face to hers, the hot tears which 
welled from his very heart falling fast upon her waxen 
features. “My beautiful one,” he murmured, brokenly; 
“my Penelope, my precious baby girl; oh, apeak to me,” 
he implored ; “ only one word, my darling; it is J^ack asks 
you, you know. You never refused me before, sweetheart; 
for the love of God forgive me !” 

And was it fancy, or did she smile softly? Certainly it 
seemed to him that she knew that he had come, and that 
the eyes would open in an instant and thank him in the 
old sweet way for his presence. 

And all night long he knelt beside her; while Robert 
lay on Penelope’s couch, looking up the winding road, 
watching the moonlight fade into the morning, and won- 
dering how the sun could shine that day, and the birds 
sing, when the light of her eyes had forever failed. 


[the end.] 














































































































































































WAR 7 * 921 



